Abstract
This article addresses the representation of farm murders in Treurgrond (Land of sorrow) (2015) by mapping the ways in which the suspense/thriller genre, spectacular representations, classical Hollywood narrative and the casting of Steve Hofmeyr guide and manipulate the audience into a one-sided and oversimplified view of farm murders, depriving the viewer of participation and replacing the intended silence and reflection with a resounding full stop. In the second part of the essay I propose a model for responsible filmmaking, informed by Judith Butler’s work on responsibility, to theorise an approach to filmmaking that not only respects the real-life victims of farm attacks, but also allows the audience to respond to the film’s subject matter and participate in the meaning-making process.
The introduction of the article draws from an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, in which the Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke criticised Downfall (2004) for its melodramatic and sympathetic portrayal of Adolf Hitler and Steven Spielberg’s use of the gas chambers to create suspense in Schindler’s list (1993). Haneke believes that filmmakers should be careful not to create entertainment from real-life horrors and that they have a responsibility to ensure that audiences remain free and independent from manipulation. Instead of forcing their opinion on the audience, filmmakers have to provide the audience with the means to form their own opinion regarding a film and its subject matter. Without attempting to draw any similarities between the Holocaust and farm attacks in South Africa, I find Haneke’s approach to responsible filmmaking useful in reading the representation of violence and murder in Darrell Roodt’s Treurgrond. The film stirred intense debate in the press and polarised audiences in 2015. While some championed the film’s commitment in bringing the atrocity of farm murders to the fore, various critics condemned the filmmakers for imbuing the issue of farm attacks with sentimentality and melodrama, while others criticised the film for carrying a political agenda. The presence of AfriForum and the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU) certainly complicates the film’s relationship with its audience and its attempt to represent farm attacks. I therefore argue that it is not the subject matter of Treurgrond that is problematic, but rather the manner in which the subject matter is organised and represented that raises concern.
The first section of the article deals with the various ways in which the suspense/thriller genre, spectacle, classic Hollywood narrative and casting of Steve Hofmeyr contribute to the manipulation of the audience. Firstly, I use Treurgrond’s thrilling opening sequence as a starting point to argue that the scene enables the audience to recognise the suspense/thriller genre. Together with the suspense/thriller tropes utilised throughout the film, the genre provides the audience with a host of ideological strategies to interpret farm attacks. I then draw from the work of Guy Debord to explain that the spectacularisation of farm attacks not only gives the audience the opportunity to see something they would not normally be able to see, but also packages farm attacks as a knowable totality and as thrilling entertainment. Real farm attacks, however, bear little resemblance to its spectacular counterpart in the film. While the spectacle gives audiences the problematic advantage of witnessing a farm attack in its totality, such a privileged position has been refused to many of its real-life victims. Thirdly I claim that Treurgrond reduces the complexity of farm attacks by fitting the story into the mould of the classic Hollywood narrative. While narrative is important, an overreliance on structure will proclaim a falsity to the audience that reality is likewise as simple and easy to read. After I prove the influence of the Hollywood narrative and its relationship to propaganda, I continue by arguing that the film cannot detach itself from the political and controversial persona of Steve Hofmeyr. Regardless of the audience’s various political views, the presence of Hofmeyr in the film predetermines the audience’s reading of his character and compromises their engagement with the sensitivity and complexity of farm attacks.
The second section of the article addresses the problem of sentimentality by focusing on the climactic farm murder. I draw from the work of Michele Aaron and Susan Sontag to argue that by aiming to generate an emotional response from the audience, the filmmakers are simplifying the atrocity of murder and absolving the audience from responsibility. Sontag argues that the audience’s proximity to atrocity generates a feeling of sentimentality and makes them sympathetic, causing them to believe that they are not accomplices in that which caused the suffering, but rather that their sympathy proclaims their innocence as well as their impotence. That is why being moved to tears, sympathy or sickness serves only to assure the audience that they are able to recognise the horror of a farm attack. Involuntary emotion is, however, the opposite of reflection and implication. The fact that the audience is never confronted with the removal of the bodies, but rather consoled by a nostalgic Christmas scene, adds to the problematic depiction of the farm murder and relieves the audience of responsibility towards the brutality they had just witnessed.
How, then, are filmmakers supposed to approach atrocities that have had a traumatic effect on its real-life survivors? In the third section of the article I use Haneke’s example of Alain Resnais’sNight and fog (1955) to contextualise Judith Butler’s theory of responsibility. Haneke argues thatNight and fog is a film that deals with the Holocaust responsibly by refusing to create entertainment or provide the audience with answers. Haneke emphasises Resnais’s humility as a filmmaker in dealing with a subject whose lived experience he cannot know, leading him to construct Night and fog in such a way that the film becomes opaque to the audience. While most films usually aim to construct narratives that aim to explain the ways in which we are related to one another and other social realities, Night and fog presents a narrative of the Holocaust that is fragmented and opaque. The approach to Night and fog’s source material provides a sharp contrast to Treurgrond, which I contend is transparent and explanatory in its dealings with farm attacks. Filmmakers have the responsibility to create a film that is opaque, in other words acknowledge its limits of self-knowledge, in order to represent difficult subject matter in a way that is ethical, responsible and respectful to the horrific lived experience we cannot know.
Night and fog’s refusal to explain or entertain thwarts the audience’s expectation or desire to know. This refusal injures the audience’s expectation. By being confronted with a film that refuses closure, the audience is, as Haneke argues, violated into autonomy. What does a position of autonomy through injury provide the spectator with? My use of Butler contextualises the injuriousness of the spectator as, for her, it is only from the position of being injured that a certain conception of responsibility can be understood. If the filmmaker injures the spectator, the spectator becomes responsible towards that which caused injury, in other words, the film or, perhaps even more specifically, the film’s subject matter. While Resnais has fulfilled his responsibility towards his audience by creating a film that recognises the limits of its self-knowledge, the audience is enabled, through injury, to respond to the film and act responsibly in return. I compare my argument regarding Night and fog with my view of the nature of Treurgrond, as the film does not injure its audience, but attempts to provide closure, explanation and resolution. Real farm attacks, however, never provide such a conclusion for its victims, especially those who survive. Treurgrond presents the unknowable in spectacular and entertaining fashion, a position that is generated at the expense of real-life survivors and victims of farm attacks, whose experience is fractured, unknowable and impenetrable.
I conclude the article by using the penultimate scene of Treurgrond to demonstrate the film’s weakness in providing easy answers. The final words of the film, informed by a reading of Antjie Krog, are loaded with political significance when placed within the historical context of the Afrikaner’s consciousness. The penultimate scene, together with the poem recital at the funeral, Steve Hofmeyr’s direct-to-camera stare and AfriForum’s advertisement before the credits not only simplifies the position of the white Afrikaner in South Africa, but also reveals the film’s political agenda. Not only do AfriForum and TAU use the atrocities of farm murders as a marketing platform, but they also contribute to the politicisation of farm attacks. A film that deals with the horrors of farm attacks must be dealt with responsibly, for it will only be when filmmakers uphold their own responsibility that the audience will be held accountable in return.
Keywords: AfriForum; Darrell Roodt; farm murders; film; Judith Butler; Michael Haneke; responsibility; Steve Hofmeyr; Treurgrond
The post (Ir-)Responsible filmmaking: The representation of farm murders in Darrell Roodt’s Treurgrond (2015) appeared first on LitNet.