Review by Amos Lassen
By: Amos Lassen
"MOFFIE"
A Self-Denying Gay Man and the of Apartheid
Amos Lassen
Nicholas 'Nick' Van der Swart (Kai Luke Brummer) knows that he is different and that there is something shameful and unacceptable in him that ...
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"MOFFIE"
A Self-Denying Gay Man and the of Apartheid
Amos Lassen
Nicholas 'Nick' Van der Swart (Kai Luke Brummer) knows that he is different and that there is something shameful and unacceptable in him that must remain hidden and even denied. South Africa's minority government is deeply involved in conflict at the Angolan border and all white young men over 16 must serve two years of compulsory military service to defend the Apartheid regime and its culture of racist machismo. There is the real and present threat of what is wrong with Nicholas and others like him can be rooted out, treated and cured like a cancer. Because he is afraid of being discovered, rooted out, treated and "cured", Nicholas accepts unspeakable horrors in the hopes of staying invisible until a relationship with another recruit becomes as dangerous for both of them both as is enemy fire.
Nick is the strong, silent, stoical type. He undergoes abusive military training under a disgusting, sadistic sergeant. Nick is scared into accepting all the horror around him and tries to fit in and stay invisible. He buckles down to his training and duty.
Director and co/writer Oliver Hermanus's "Moffie" is an unbeatable assault course on prejudice, racism, machismo and homophobia. It all happened a long time ago, and some of the battles have been won but the war for equality continues and we see here that it takes men of honor and courage like Nick to fight it.
"Moffie" is "an urgent call to arms, contemporary in relevance, and rewarding as drama." It is also a wartime romantic drama. What we see is that there is not much romance in South Africa, just war and conflict. But there is romance and love in Nick's soul. Incidentally, the word "moffie" is Afrikaans for pansy or queer and the dialogue is in that language. Moffie is casually hurled out as an insult, designed to demean "communist" opponents, or shame gay men to stay in the closet and avoid living a life detrimental to the supposedly Christian values of Apartheid-era South Africa. The film is set in a grueling military environment in the early 1980's and it is brutal in unflinchingly "depicting a toxic, masculine regime that serves only to indoctrinate the nation's youth into a repugnant racist, homophobic ideology."
The first half documents military training (with a verbally abusive officer. The second flashes forward to the young soldiers being sent to the front line. This is an articulate depiction of festering homophobia in apartheid-era South Africa that examines the abhorrent racism of the apartheid regime with scrutiny. The other forms of prejudice widespread during the era were never as widely reported internationally, and director Hermanus highlights the casual nature of apartheid-era homophobia in the most brutal way possible. Since Nicholas has English heritage, only taking the surname of his stepfather to blend in, he's viewed with suspicion by the other conscripted boys he's staying with and does his best to stay silent, so as to not reveal his own sexuality. This gets complicated when he starts getting close to Stassen (Ryan de Villiers), a fellow squad member he starts developing feelings for, in the middle of an environment where other "moffies" have been publicly beaten and punished to teach the whole squad a lesson.
"Moffie" takes to another level with the constant bellowing from Sergeant Brand (Hilton Pelser). While the archetype of the sociopathic military chief has long been established, it feels really visceral here. Brand is one of the evillest figures in recent cinematic memory, constantly yelling vile racist, homophobic and enables bile with casualness, never showing any signs of remorse, as he's so deeply bought into the apartheid belief system.
When we do get moments of tenderness, such as a night in the trenches between Nicholas and Stassen, they feel every bit as stressful as the military endurance tests. There is no conceivable happy ending for gay men in this environment, and as Hermanus goes deeper into Nicholas' past, the psychological toll of remaining in the closet in such an environment becomes even more apparent. Kai Luke Brummer's performance is understated, reflecting a character who is doing all he can to survive the conscription without being noticed for what he is. He's hardly a blank slate of a protagonist and Brummer deliberately portray him as one, even as the wider world keeps trying to shake him out of his introverted shell.
Hermanus leaves Nick's sexuality fluid throughout although it is clear he has homosexual feelings for Stassen but needs to keep these under wraps for his own survival. Apartheid is illustrated on several scenes where the recruits verbally abuse a lone black man on a station platform but their own humanity is keenly brought to the surface demonstrating the ambivalent climate of their own masculinity and vulnerability.