Tag Archives: Oliver Hermanus

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Parks & Resignation

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Living

by George Wolf

It shouldn’t take a film such as Living to make us realize what a treasure we have in Bill Nighy.

But then it shouldn’t take a grim diagnosis for Rodney Williams to seek true meaning in his life, so maybe Nighy’s long wait for a first Academy Award nomination is somehow cosmically right.

In this adaptation of Kurosawa’s 1952 classic Ikiru (To Live), Nighy earns every bit of that Oscar nod as “Mr. Williams,” the humorless manager of a public works office in 1950s London. Various floors full of buttoned-up civil servants pass on projects to other departments until the papers finally come to rest on one desk or another, with piles always kept as high as possible so co-workers won’t “think you have nothing better to do.”

Mr. Williams doesn’t, until a fateful trip to the doctor makes him realize how sad this is. A night out with that rascal Sutherland (Tom Burke) offers some cheap thrills, but it’s the persistence of the local ladies petitioning for a new public playground that give Mr. Williams the chance to leave a legacy.

Nobel prize-winning writer Kazuo Ishiguro adapts Kurosawa (and lands his own Oscar nom) with a script that shaves about 45 minutes off the running time while it adds layers of beauty and sentiment. Mr. Williams’ distance from his son becomes more heartbreaking, while the relationships with his two youngest employees (Alex Sharp and Aimee Lou Wood) are given more arc and resonance.

Director Oliver Hermanus replaces the original film’s clinical narration and B&W palette with gentle grace and the splendidly picturesque cinematography of Jamie Ramsay. Outside the office confines, this is a gorgeous London of crisp lines among detailed color, light and shadow, all in orbit around a lead performance of endless humanity.

Nighy is just the epitome of wonderful, with every sigh, furrowed brow and slight smile conveying so much about Mr. Williams’ journey to contentment. Nighy’s every moment on screen nearly glows with honesty, and provides the film with a unique and dignified identity.

Kurosawa’s take still hits hard, but Living would have been foolish to follow a similar fight plan. These blows may indeed be softer, but don’t think for a second they won’t leave a mark.

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Tin Soldiers

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Moffie

by Samantha Harden

“Moffie” is a derogatory term used in South Africa meaning an “effeminate homosexual man.” Moffie is also the name of the South African-British biographical war film.

The film was written and directed by Oliver Hermanus. With help from his co-writer Jack Sidey, the two created a love story that encapsulates struggles, racism and homophobia. You feel stressed right from the beginning.

The year is 1981, South Africa’s white minority government is entangled in conflicts at its borders with communist-led Angola. All white men between the ages of 17 and 60 must complete two years of mandatory military service.

Nicholas Van der Swart (Kai Luke Brummer) was drafted into South Africa’s military, but he knows he is different from the other men serving. Another recruit develops an intimate relationship with Van der Swart and they realize that they are both in danger. 

This is just an incredible performance by Brummer. You could feel his emotions, the worry and the sadness and most of all, fear. Throughout the movie you rarely saw even the slightest smile. 

The first scene begins with suspenseful music that feels as though it belongs in a horror movie. Of course for young Nick, it is a horror movie.

But once Nick meets Dylan Stassen (Ryan de Villiers) and begins to fit in (at least a little), the music changes to classical opera. Later the music makes another change, and then another, and another. Braam du Toit’s score continues to change throughout the film to match Nick’s moods, an excellent detail.

Moffie not only has an aesthetically pleasing score but it is an aesthetic pleasure of the highest order, on nearly every level. 

The movie is so bright and beautiful even if the story is heartbreaking. In a flashback we see young Nick at the public pool with his parents. The camera follows him underwater and for a moment, Nick is happy and carefree. 

We see Nick again underwater, but this time he isn’t a carefree young child anymore. Now Nick is a soldier in the South African military and he just lost a friend. The world has been cruel to Nicholas Van der Swart, Moffie captured that cruelty.