“Vir Altyd”
Audiences may wonder what relation Ivan Botha and Donnalee Roberts’s new film, Vir Altyd (“Forever”), bears to the last one, Pad na jou Hart (“Road to Your Heart”) (both directed by Jaco Smit). The characters and settings are new (don’t expect to have escaped the Cape since the last one, though), but one senses more than a few links between the two works. They’re easy enough to track down: we’re still securely in romantic comedy/travelogue territory; the two stars are again a reluctant couple, adamant not to fall for one another despite being scantily clad together on a tropical island; and, most regrettably, the film is still beset with the impedimenta of hipsterism. The opening shots are of neatly picked, pastel-hued proteas in copper pots, yellowed maps and photographs, vintage cameras, and a shiny VW Beetle, all accompanied by the folk-rock yelps of Mumford & Sons. In short, having travelled down the road to her heart, Botha must now devise a plan to keep it with him – for always.
The chief difference between the two films is the artistic accomplishment realised by the filmmakers. In both movies, audiences are attracted to and won over by the charming lead actors, the artificially sweetened script they recite from, the bucketfuls of sunshine and quaint natural scenery in which they find themselves immersed, and the inevitability and virtue of their romance. With the characters of Pad na jou Hart, however, we’re never given more than a handsome smile and the obvious discontent it so pitifully hides. The characters are pretty faces trying to conceal a sore spot, and once those bruises are bared and soothed, there’s nothing more to them as people. Hugo and Nina, however – the young couple at the centre of Vir Altyd – while uttering dialogue (given to them by the actors who play them) no more distinguished nor gripping than their precursors did, are bestowed by the cast’s performances with a little more life, and implications of broader experiences and deeper emotions.