Dear Diary

The South Africa Show: ANC Conference Xmas Special continues to blow my mind, as per my notes on yesterday’s episode, the soundtrack was a masterclass in how to write an authentically South African film score.

Speaking of masterclasses, one of the film’s co-directors, Pule Mabe, who, in true Barbara Streisand style, occasionally jumps in front of the camera to play one of the characters, took time out of his busy shooting schedule to speak to the press about the cinematography behind the show. He also shared great philosophical insights about the way the ubiquity of the camera lens in daily life shapes 21st-century life.

Unpacking the events of the first episode of this genre-busting gonzo-style scripted-reality Afro-political documentary mockumentary true-crime fictional drama series, the auteur took time to explain to the press all the different camera techniques that they incorporated to bring dramatised chaos to such spectacular life, and how in true modern collaborative filmmaking, they too helped shape the film.

“Yesterday I’m sure you saw, we had to ask you to turn your cameras and face the President, because it’s human nature, when your cameras are watching delegates even when they were not singing, they see… ‘yo TV!’, then they start singing the loudest now, because the camera is there… We see cameras then we start showing some courage,” he explained.

Deep stuff. There is so much to unpack here, a thesis, really. Are we even authentic humans any more? Or are we just algorithmic ubuntoids waiting to be activated by the nearest camera lens?  Just how much of our actions are merely performative because of the hypervisibility brought on by the ubiquity of camera lenses in the social media age? Are we still woke when no one is watching? Does the pursuit of Radical Economic Transformation even matter if it can’t get us views and likes?

“I’m sitting here [and] cameras are watching my direction. What do I do?” the great director asked rhetorically, “There’s a point I want to raise, here is an opportunity to make my point known, heard by the world. I scream in front of that camera,” he elaborated, and in that one epiphanic moment, he not only explained the trouble with the world of front-facing cameras that we exist in, but he took us into his confidence, and explained what he was trying to do with yesterday’s episode; the point he was trying to make about the death of authentic activism.

“So you see that cameras can also contribute to disruptions,” said Mabe. In that moment, I contemplated trashing my iPhone and going back to a cameraless Nokia 3220. #FreedomFromCamerasInOurLifeTime #CamerasMustFall #ViewsMustFall #LikesMustFall

Some viewers probably assumed that the chaos portrayed in yesterday’s episode was somewhat organic, that maybe it was a story of an abused people bursting out in discontent. Or perhaps the writers had decided to incorporate elements of gangster films, where one might see a bit of friction when different factions of a city’s most powerful gang gather to chop up territories. Not so; like the great director he is, Mabe was only holding up a mirror to society and exposing the power, as well as the dangers of the camera.

I can’t wait to watch today’s episode as soon as I close this diary! I wonder if it’ll follow the experimental style of yesterday’s episode, which totally deconstructed the typical three-act narrative style by kicking off with an unexpected and exceptional seven-hour musical chanting intro before the first speaker took to the podium in that strategically boring three-hour-long speech, which really put the Con in conference.

Such a tense and memorable episode that one, but I must confess that watching the day’s earlier excitement drain away from the room as the President character droned on was just too much suspense. The rare sight of a room full of unexcitable Africans is a terrible thing to witness, even on screen. I would never wish such an abomination even on my worst enemy. Still, kudos to the filmmakers for making such risky choices, while managing to cleverly contrast these moments with comedic cameos for that perpetually vibrant Duracell Bunny Niehaus character. Wakanda could never! DM/ML