Tag: Johannesburg

Weltschmerz and glitter

Now in her sixties and not afraid to take hold of the world with both hands, Elzabe Zietsman’s revue comprises a mêlée of songs which she has penned and others she has moulded to fit South Africa’s unique levels of hypocrisy, hatred and hope, sometimes all in the same breath.

Once upon a time at a taxi rank

The narrative of ‘A Streetcar’ is rich with tropes central to the South African taxi industry, and its complex social and economic history. Listen to the discourse. Taxiology in South Africa is a real thing, about spicy micro-narratives and social protocol as well as about God, the universe and everything.

New fruit in autumn

This film gives you a guttural love of the universe to take home with you. Stripped cleanly of platitudes, it is unabashedly about grabbing life in fists full of pungently ripe blackberries and holding on to one’s self-belief and one’s privacy, come what may.

Red herrings, anyone?

FRENCH CUISINE HAS a filmographic lure all of its own. It’s about copper-based skillets and the bouquet of finely aged wines, the pairing of unusual flavours and the digging in wet earth for just the right flavoured truffle that will be sensitively grated into a dish to create […]

If a child lives with no hugs

CHILDREN LEARN WHAT they live is an iconic poem written by Dorothy Law Nolte in the 1950s. With catching rhythms of repetition, it presents the different values that can shape a child. But one not taken into consideration is that of utter emotional abandonment. In the Irish film, […]

Love is transient; land, forever

IF YOU TAKE a slice out of the formalities of matchmaking and weddings from Fiddler on the Roof, and slot it in alongside some of the more potent scenes involving the beautiful widow in Nikos Kazantzakis’s Zorba the Greek, sprinkle the concoction rather heavily with romanticised farmgirl wholesomeness, […]

Chekhov to the max

WHAT IS IT about Chekhov that makes us relate so beautifully to his characters that we can be unbridled in our laughter, cringes and agony of recognition at their psychological turmoil and suffocating family closeness? Director Sam Yates and writer Simon Stephens have cooked up a fresh and […]

Folly shared, folly multiplied

WE LIVE IN a world that would be unrecognisable to anyone of a previous generation. It’s a world where spite and malice can have legs that last forever and a tail that can destroy lives. Indeed, it’s a world where a silly gag can land a child with […]