By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Oliver Hermanus
Starring: Barbara-Marié Immelman | Connor Dowds | Emil van Niekerk | Kai Luke Brummer | Michael Kirch | Remano De Beer
Country: south_africa, united_kingdom
Year: 2021
Running time: 104
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10699362/reference
Michael says; ‘What is basically a coming-of-age tale disguised as a war movie, MOFFIE is a South African film based on a popular apartheid-era memoir about a privileged, white, young man who is being sent off to this mandatory two years of military service. The twist is, our protagonist is also gay, which adds a challenging wrinkle to the essentially hour of toxic masculinity disguised as basic training, where anyone exuding even an imagined whiff of queerness could end up in ‘Ward 22,’ which is apparently worse than the front lines of the war. Fortunately, Nicholas, manages to strip away any sense of emotion and fade into the background of the cookie-cutter young soldiers in training who only survive by turning on those weaker than themselves. Imagine if Claire Denis had directed FIGHT CLUB rather than BEAU TRAVAIL, and you might start to get a sense of the film… but not in a positive way. Sounds like lots of fun, eh? The last third of the film suddenly veers into FULL METAL JACKET territory, when the young men get a harsh dose of reality thrown in their faces as they are sent to the front lines. The film ends with a strong but fairly crushing epilogue that is ambiguous enough to leave you confident that Nicholas, at any rate, will make through life okay. The others we’ve met in the past 90 minutes? Not so much. It’s interesting to note that much is made of the apartheid-era setting, and the film is directed by a black man, but it’s so strongly focused on the white, heterosexual, male gaze. 3 cats“