Les Moissonneurs

Simply beautiful! A story told through divine shots and delightfull cinematography. Impressive directing and wonderful performances. A gem!

Watch it!

Director: Etienne Kallos

Cast Alex van Dyk Brent Vermeulen Juliana Venter Morné Visser Erika Wessels Benre Labuschachne Danny Keough Roxana Kerdachi.

I watched the film last April in Barcelona at a festival. It was outstanding and has stayed in my head ever since. a landscape of wide fields, huge cliffs, dark clouds and the brutal waves of the deep blue sea form the setting for a quiet but extremely tense story. The film is unique and poetic. The shots are beautiful.

Just finished watching this very powerful portrayal of a deeply religious and conservative Afrikaans farming family in the Free State region of South Africa who take in a drug using street kid played immensely well by Alex Van Dyk. In fact, he, and the young lead Brent Vermeulen (who plays the family's only son Janno) were both outstanding in this film. And I believe this was their first film roles? The acting from all the main characters was superb, as was the script and direction from Etienne Kallos. A special mention must be made of the sublime scenery in that part of South Africa. I gave this 8 stars (instead of 10) for two reasons. At times I did find it quite slow moving, especially given the length of the film, and secondly, despite the overall high quality as I outlined, I found it a quite depressing and bleak story that left me reaching for a block of chocolate at the end.

This is the second Africaans film that I've seen with a gay theme, so to speak, that has a very dark and unsatisfying plot and subplot. "Beauty" (Skoonheid) was the first. I gave it one star. And now this one, The Harvesters. Is it just these two, or are Africaans incapable of making a gay themed film without horrific violence, as in the case of Beauty, or violent emotions, as in the case of The Harvesters. Why?

Both of these terrible films are done VERY well with great performances by their leads and secondary cast, with strong directing, but really questionable writing. No one will ever "like" either of these movies. We may watch them but there is no reason to go back for seconds and I regret the first helping in near totality.

The Harvesters has some great acting, very understated, making it all the stronger. It has good directing, but the director wrote the screenplay, and that's where it falls apart. Like Beauty, it's gayness is grotesque. I'm not sure who this pleases, as straight people aren't going to want to watch it, and if there are gay people who do, I hope I don't know them.

Great cinematography, acting, directing, beautiful landscapes, but overall so unpleasing. I may go for a "third time is a charm" with the next gay-themed Africaaner film, but it's not looking good.

A powerful film. For performances and cinematography, first. A religious story. It is not an evidence, only the feeling across entire film. A surprising force of acting of the two young lead actors. The photography, the Afrikaans itself, the bitter atmosphere, the game of appearences as solid virtues. The only problem, maybe the story who is more a sketch for give to the viewer the chance to define the moments, to put together the reactions of characters or to judge.