Siembamba

Words cannot do justice to the film and story. The supernatural crossing is an overlap of trauma centered on motherhood and the destructive nature of patriarchy. This is not a film for those overly sensitive to infanticide and sexual assault.

I thought it was going to be your average horror movie, but it's absolutely not. It's a very heavy drama which deals with such themes as horrors of the motherhood, mental illness and rape. All of this and a paranormal element on top of it which references genocide in concentration camps during Anglo-Boer War in 1901.

The horror scenes are terrifying and very effective. The actors' performances are excellent and add a lot to the overall heavy atmosphere.

In Eden Rock, the pregnant Chloe van Heerden (Reine Swart) returns to the house of her estranged mother Ruby (Thandi Puren). She refuses to tell her mother who the father is. She delivers the boy Liam, but fall in depression and lives an ambiguous situation, rejecting Liam and trying also to be a good mother. When she starts to see an evil entity and hear humming and shh, she visits the psychologist of her mother, Dr. Timothy Reed (Brandon Auret), who prescribes pills to her, believing she has baby blues. Meanwhile Chloe recalls how she got pregnant after leaving Ruby and her best friend Adam Hess (Deànré Reiners).

"Siembamba" is an atmospheric horror movie, with a messy screenplay for a simple storyline. The best this film can offer is the magnificent performance of the unknown Reine Swart. She never tells anyone her dramatic fate after leaving home, and the creepy scenes are hard to understand. Is the evil entity part of her insanity process or is she real? The film fails since is not clear. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Siembamba, A Canção do Mal" ("Siembamba, The Song of Evil")

Caught this film last night, it was met with much anticipation considering last year's social media buzz on its low distribution by South African cinema franchises, supposedly due to its themes. It's been blogged that the film was inspired by Afrikaans folklore but unfortunately the film never really goes there.

It's about a young mother, Chloe played by Reine Swart going through a bad case of social depression. She lives with her mother plus a newly born baby and set in South Africa (although no Black South African actors nor extras are seen). The story specifically takes place in a forest looking location; Eden Rocks, it makes one wonder if it's a reference to the recent controversial "White Christian Only" gated community called "Project Eden" (but that's in the desert area).

Anyway, what follows that Chloe has visions, or illusions of a type of boogey man (or more of a boogey woman spectre) referencing the film's opening scenes of early 1900s Dutch (?) Christians participating in ritual sacrifices. Chloe's spectre comes off looking like a flying nun whose apparitions makes her sanity worse throughout the film, but this is where the narrative drags.

Director Darrell Roodt, who has been nominated (and has received awards) for his film productions such as 1992's Sarafina. Surprising, this film's weakest points of not developing character depth by using its star power, namely Brandon Auret (from CHAPPIE fame) top billed as Dr. Reeds. This narrative had great potential to use his acting talents to raise the suspense and horror, instead of employing predictable jump scares.

Yet, the most notable aspect of "Siembamba" (known as "The Lullaby" abroad) that it's an initiative in developing more contemporary South African cinematic horror. Although its marketing has been trying to do a comparison with the Australian film "The Babadook", but this film could probably be compared to an earlier Millennial Italian horror film, "Ghost Son" by Lamberto Bava (also set in a Southern African location).

I don't watch horror movies expecting a great story. I expect to be entertained, disturbed, frightened and disoriented. This movie did all of that.

Without spoiling too much, the main character (Chloe) returns to her hometown, struggling with her own emotions after bearing a baby she does not seem to want initially. she begins to see very strange and horrific things after moving back into her home. This is exacerbated by the presence of her mother (Ruby) and her shrink (Dr. Timothy Reed), whose competence and ethics was questionable throughout the movie.

The cinematography is very well-done. I was not at all disappointed with the way the film was shot. Although, the story does not have to be great in a horror movie, but as with most movies, the story ought not be overly confusing and vague. While watching this film I get the sense that sometimes, the incoherent story was written this way intentionally. Vagueness and open-endedness is great for a horror movie, but I felt that it was not executed smoothly in this one.

The actors did an excellent job, especially Reine Swart (Chloe) and Brandon Auret (Timothy Reed). The only black spot was Adam Hess, who played Chloe's love interest. He was dull and uninteresting throughout the entire movie and seemed to serve no relevant purpose. Chloe does an excellent job portraying a disturbed and distraught new mother. The supporting characters all seemed to have their own agendas, and trying to find out what those agendas were, kept me interested up until the end. As for Chloe, the movie kept me thinking whether she was hallucinating, or whether she was experiencing something paranormal (or even both at different times).

In the end, I would recommend giving this movie a watch if one has time to spare. The movie kept me uncomfortable and curious throughout the entirety of the movie up until the ending, which is what you want in a horror flick. The final scene caused me shock (in a good way) but unsatisfied due to how the story unfolded towards the end. Most of the characters had a lot of layers, and the intentions of the supporting characters were unclear even until the end if one does not do a bit of thinking of their own. Be warned, this movie contains some disturbing gore.

This was not a forgettable movie in the slightest. In fact, some scenes will haunt your memories for days to come. However, due to the unsatisfying ending and the overly confusing nature of the plot, it keeps me from giving it anything higher than a 6 out of 10, which makes this a passably entertaining, yet unfortunately flawed film.