tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186716633859844711.post2674961654194586037..comments2024-03-19T09:05:28.122+02:00Comments on The Back Row: “Krotoa”’s Middling Middle GroundJared Beukeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16630746658475436048noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186716633859844711.post-22405963053540105512017-08-19T09:34:31.564+02:002017-08-19T09:34:31.564+02:00I am just a 76 year old crow to whom this film was...I am just a 76 year old crow to whom this film was recommended by a friend as a "must see". I did and right from the start I wondered who was responsible for writing the script as there seemed to be no natural flow into the story by either the scenes displayed or the dialogue. I did read the international acclaim at the entrance to the theater as I waited for my wife and looked forward in anticipation to an excellent movie; so maybe I expected too much. The international acclaim is exactly in line with awarding Barack Obama with the Nobel Peace Price some years ago just before he continued and started some more wars slaughtering people mostly in the Middle East.<br />If the message of the film was to start a conversation about typical claims to SA heritage , the plot was quite good , but to bring in real historical characters like Jan van Riebeeck's family and portray him as a weakling who was lead by his glands instead of his brain because his wife was supposed to be this cold fish ( I wonder how they managed to get eight sons by the time she died at the age of only thirty-five ) is just plain sick ! How did they between them manage to bring up this eleven year old raw Khoi girl into this very mature multi cultured creature in a matter of about five years who overshadowed all the characters in the movie? Obviously the girl hardly took notice of anything Maria van Riebeeck tried to teach her and Jan must have been quite busy in the ten years he was at the Cape to control a bunch of raw hooligans, teach them farming , build a fort , reporting to hard taskmasters as the VOC were known to be , import vines from all over the world etc.etc.<br />The bottom line referral to some prominent SA leaders destroyed my last believe in DNA as did Stephen Oppenheimer in his book "Out of Africa's Eden " some years ago . <br />My bottom line is simple : " change the backdrop of characters and you might just have a bit of a story and be careful to discredit real people who, whether we like it or not, are an important part of SA's historical record. I will refrain from commenting on the quality of the production as there are others more qualified then myself to do that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com