I’m currently convulsed in a
long stretch of catching up on this blog; commitments arose to which I had to give
priority over viewing and writing about movies for a short while, as much as I
hated to, but, fortunately, I’m now freely available to post here again. Die Rebellie van Lafras Verwey was a new
South African release which, I think, is by now already gone from theatres. I
saw it when it was playing, and, hopefully, will get a chance to say something more
about it here later, without seeming too self-indulgent; for now, I’m sharing
what others had to say in reaction to it. Just because there are many South
African films that I would like to read about but missed the chance to in local
papers after they finished their theatrical run, and because most of them don’t
get the Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic treatment of a long-standing compilation
of reviews, I think it’d still be helpful to interested readers if I collected here what I could find on each South African work I see.
In his weekly Silwerskerm (“Silver screen”) column in
the Rapport, Leon van Nierop reviewed
the movie on its weekend of release (in the issue from the 9th of
April). After giving a brief run-down of the history of the film’s source
material and a plot description, he praises the lead performance by Tobie Cronjé,
who, in his view,
delivers a
monumental portrayal of the cast-off person with idle aspirations. He
is sometimes funny, but also tragic and nonplussed.