Of Good Report

Jahmil was on the come up at almost the exact same time I started my film degree and actively seeked out SA filmmakers and watching their work. They actually showed us Of Good Report at my film school, AFDA, and I don't know how to put in word how much is floored us all and lit a fire on our backsides to get working!

I later got to see Sew The Winter To My Skin when I assisted at the first Joburg Film Festival and boy oh boy did he hit us with another deeply intriguing and uniquely beautiful film. But I don't want to talk about Sew The Winter I want to talk about this masterful work.

Just off the bat, "You come of Good Report Mr Sithole" is the cleanest Title drop I've seen in a while. And what a character Mr Sithole turns out to be. I am sure I am not smart enough a story teller or audience member to properly unpack the meaning and intention of making your main character silent. And then to pull off a completely dialogue free follow up with Sew The Winter is staggering! At the very least a character that does not speak intrigues you and is a fresh narrative device and challenge to make work. I think it works here because of the moving performance and giving him physically funny, sinister, sad actions and movements that tells more than he ever could.

Another filming technique that had me with my analysis hat on was the choice to make it black and white. I think the effect it has is it makes the film feel timeless, it ages the story. It also as a truthful feel, like here are the facts in black and white.

As a piece of cinema this film has way enough about it in the way it is acted, filmed, and edited to be a real showcase of a collection of really talented South African filmmakers all given exactly what they needed from the story to flex their skills in a big way.

The story itself is a hard watch, a beautiful and brutal watch. It is super relevant to the Gender Based Violence in our country and definitely this is effective and moving.

Truly we can't sleep on this guy, Jahmil is one of our countries finest filmmakers working at the moment! The ending of this sizzles, it sizzles with the same intensity as like a Talented Mr Ripley, Phantom Thread for me.

Movie is in Africa with African people but the girl he falls in love with or whatever is a half breed or other??? Is there something wrong with loving a dark skinned woman?? So sick of so called black movies and the so called black woman skin color has to depict a white woman image . Self hate is real..

I have to say this film is very striking and impressive for me.

The most note-worthy feature is the amazing soundtrack. There are so many layers of sound, so much fear, boldness, insanity and hatred in the sound that it can be so frightening to listen. I feel the filmmaker's effort to impact on audiences' senses with music and noises.

The mise-en-scene is so bleak as to the extent of scary or even gruesome. The intentional production of black and white creates such a feeling of horror and the film milieu is fraught with imminent danger and violence. The leading actor's performance is imbued with trauma, torture, extreme desire and brutality. His sheer silence can be either a preference of the director or his own choice of portraying the ultimately cruel and dangerous monster with a harmless and care- needing look.

As far as I observe, negative opinions mainly come from the intentional black-and-white representation (in order to be "stylish") and the arguably "poor performance" of the leading actor. On the contrary, I reckon the lack of colour adds up to the whole bleak and Gothic thrill, or at least avoid upsetting spectators with the crime scene, like Hitchcock's choice of making Psycho black and white. I agree the film plot does not have a big twist or is as mind-burning as Christopher Nolan's, but simply calling the film "boring" due to the particular representation and acting is untenable. In a nutshell, I would recommend the film, especially for the sound.