Francois Verster’s new film, ‘Sea Point Days’ is alive with all sorts of characters: small people, big people, fat people, thin people, old people, young people, and Sea Point.
Of his films that I have seen to date, namely ‘When the War is Over’, ‘The Mothers’ House’, and now ‘Sea Point Days’, the latest is my favourite. One of the reasons I enjoyed it is because it isn’t overtly political, even though it does try to comment on the change in South African society. I also think it is brave to make such a poetic film, with no clear narrative structure, with no clear main human character, when the overriding concern in South African filmmaking commissions at the moment seems to be a concern for the audience being able to follow an obvious story.
‘Sea Point Days’ is showing at Encounters Documentary Film Festival 2009 on Friday 3rd July and Sunday 19th July.
HONESTLY, HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO MAKE THIS FILM?
We first shot right at the end of 2004 and the film was finished in September 2008. But then I made some more changes and it was finally finished in March this year (2009).
Taking the plunge
WHY DID YOU WANT TO EDIT THIS FILM YOURSELF?
Partly because there was no money for an editor – the edit took nine months – and we only had a budget for an editor for five or six weeks. So the editor came in for a couple of two week stretches. But the main reason was because we couldn’t afford an editor. Also because it was a personal film and it was important that I was part of finding the film language, that is what the storytelling style would be and how the material would fit together and figuring out what the film says. So the edit process becomes an exploration itself and that exploration comes into finality in the edit.
With observational films, you only understand things once you’re editing. You understand people better and situations better in the edit. The clues start fitting together because you get a bird’s eye view of someone’s life over a period of time, which they don’t even have. A long term observational film gives you unusual insight into someone’s life. With this film things were far more loose and far more intuitive and I understood better what I wanted to do through doing the editing myself.
It was an extremely difficult process to edit this film, partly because I’m not an editor, partly because I was working alone for most of it. My producers were not in Cape Town so there was no immediate production process around me. No matter how supportive my producers were, I was alone. The stuff was also too close to the bone for me; and working towards the deadline was tough with a shapeless film that didn’t have a clear narrative and structure.
HOW WAS THE FILM PERSONAL?
It is a very director led film, an essayistic film, where all the issues in the film are my issues – the film deals with whiteness quite a lot, it deals with identity, with nostalgia, the right to nostalgia, empathy and the right to empathy. I guess I wanted to somehow work out, or give shape to some of the contradictions and confusions I feel living in this time and place as a South African, or as a white South African, so there’s a lot of my own family footage. This is in some way my issue with the old ladies in the film, whom you love in the film, but who are also beneficiaries of apartheid.
The whole film is also about finding a voice within a loaded and complicated political and class framework. These issues have become rigidified and it’s hard to take certain debates further because people have strong thoughts – and the whole race and class debate is so loaded – and I thought that through using cinematic means, you could somehow get beyond some of the debates and go deeper and show the nuances and complexities that go a bit deeper, which I think is closer to the truth. If you question your position as a previously, or currently advantaged person, there are certain things where you have the right to comment, so if you listen to Tony Leon commenting on things the government is doing, you cringe and think this is a white person speaking from the position that we’re all equal with equal possibilities … so how can I, as a privileged person, actually speak about these issues, in a way that doesn’t fall into some of the traps.
It’s tricky for white people to speak about certain things because of the history of this country – I feel white people ought to be quite careful about speaking about certain things and with this film I wanted to find ways of saying things. There are a lot of new orthodoxies about what or who is wrong and who is right – and for me it’s about the intersection between race and class and nostalgia. So it’s about how they intersect, and in the film whenever there’s an easy answer, it goes another way – it consciously avoids giving you an easy answer between right and wrong.
WHAT DID YOU HAVE TO LEAVE OUT OF THE FILM?
When I started editing, I made a list of useable sequences and there were about 350 sequences. So, there was a massive amount that was left out. There was no way of prioritising them because there were no main characters and everything relates to everything else. What happened was, e.g. I shot a lot of stuff in a hostel on Sea Point Main Rd, which has subsequently shut down. It was full of unemployed white people, prostitutes trying to make good and foreigners trying to find work. You had a sense of white people on the way down and foreigners on the way up – but then I thought if the point is to be made, it could be made by the rent boys. The rent boys put certain things very succinctly and the scene was outside on the promenade, as opposed to an inside scene; it was also easier to get into the scene from the previous one.
We shot a lot of good material with the rent boys that I left out, there were scenes with kids in the play park that I left out, moments of love and misunderstanding, lots of stuff at the swimming pool that we left out.
Other things we cut out were some of the harsher stuff with Aubrey, when he gets into his prison story with his tattoos – he was quite pornographic and scatological. The stuff of him performing was enough to show that aspect of him and then show the change at the end. We had an amazing scene of a couple in their 60s who were driving along the promenade on a scooter that we had to leave out.
Drying along the side
WHO WAS YOUR INTENDED AUDIENCE WHILE YOU WERE MAKING THE FILM?
I don’t know if I had an intended audience. This is not a tv film, it wasn’t commissioned by a tv station and it wasn’t conceived of as fulfilling a tv slot. It would be silly to say you don’t have an intended audience, but I never thought it would be a big tv film. It was conceived of as a film that would get a good festival run and a cinematic release. To date it has shown at 25 festivals and Ster-Kinekor has said they want to release it at the cinema.
DID YOU HAVE A MORE NATIONAL OR LOCAL AUDIENCE IN MIND?
You have to keep certain things in mind, where you know that an international audience would not understand certain things. I found that because our society is so racially aware, we automatically attach meaning to certain things and an international audience would miss subtleties and nuances to the film. Having said that, people with a little bit of knowledge on SA, pick up on some racial nuances. The themes of belonging are universal, but manifest in South Africa along racial lines.
WHY IS THIS FILM DIVIDED INTO FIVE PARTS? THERE ISN’T AN OBVIOUS NARRATIVE PROGRESSION:
The chapter divisions are quite arbitrary – they’re quotes from people saying things in the film – and I like that in a way: it’s a reference, more than a frame. The chapters are not thematically organised because the themes are all present throughout.
The first chapter is about happiness, the second loaded towards racial harmony, or perceptions of disharmony, the third a spiritual quest, the fourth is the climax, the fifth is the conclusion where things go on. Originally there were only going to be three chapters, partly to give a sign post for the audience, which is a narrative device to tell people how far they are from the end. The film didn’t have a narrative and it didn’t have principal themes, so it seemed the film should be developed tonally – a bit like a musical piece with different moods – so, the identity is more in the mood, than in the theme of the story.
I had to decide on some kind of organizing principle because it’s not in my power to make sense of such massive material otherwise.
It’s not badly edited, but with a top class editor it would have gone to another level. For example, I think the pacing isn’t always perfect in places, so the film feels a bit convoluted to me sometimes, and maybe with another editor, certain things would have breathed a bit more. If someone like Peter Neal or Stefan Sundlöf had been on board at the end … There’s a kind of magic that happens at the end of the edit process and there would have been a lot more of that if there had been a wise mind on board. There’s an otherworldliness that maybe a more experienced editor could have pulled through even more. It could have done with another mind on board.
The two producers, Neil Brandt and Lucinda Engelhart gave feedback at various times, which was useful.
It was a very lonesome process because there was no budget and the producers were in other places. This happened because the original producer left Cape Town halfway through the film, which is when we brought Neil on board because we had a good relationship and we had worked together before. There was no-one locally who seemed either suitable for, or interested in this non-funding and non-fundable film. I take my hat off to the two producers for taking on a really hard film.
I find with my films that people, who don’t want to fund it upfront because they don’t trust it, often like them afterwards when they see them. I appreciate that they (the producers) trusted the film. It was turned down three or four times by the SABC, but now that’s it finished and doing well, they are looking at it again. We have also been in touch with M-Net and Ster-Kinekor may want to take the tv rights.
Aubrey
THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE WHO ARE IDENTIFIABLE IN THE FILM – DID YOU HAVE TO GET EVERY SINGLE PERSON’S PERMISSION TO HAVE THEM APPEAR IN THE FILM?
This was a big problem in this film: because you’re filming in a public space, you can’t get everybody’s permission; and we also filmed hundreds and hundreds of people. So we thought we’d get permission from significant people and then take contact details and get in touch with them if we used their pictures in the film; otherwise we would have literally hundreds of release forms.
So we have release forms for the people who do significant things in the film, e.g. there’s a girl in the film lifting her top with her bikini underneath and we contacted her to get her permission to use that shot. I showed the film to all the main characters to make sure they were okay with it – nobody’s objected – some people have reservations, but they haven’t objected.
The paradox about documentary is that usually the harder it is to make it and the harder to get access, the more meaningful it is to make it; so if you feel people are resistant, then there’s usually something going on because the things people find hardest to say are the most dramatic and meaningful. Almost as a rule of thumb, one should avoid people who really want to be on camera because it usually means they will give you what you need (rather than the truth); so resistance is a good thing.
THERE ARE MANY INTIMATE SHOTS WHERE WE GET TO SPEND QUITE SOME TIME WITH PEOPLE – HOW DID YOU SHOOT THESE? WERE YOU HIDDEN, OR DID YOU GET THEIR PERMISSION? IF YOU GOT THEIR PERMISSION, HOW LONG DID YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR THEM TO RELAX AND BE NATURAL?
They knew we were filming and we were there for long enough and people were aware of us. As far as possible you try to get permission. People get used to cameras very quickly and people like being in front of the camera actually – most people have a narcissistic streak, and there are also socio-political dynamics involved: in South Africa working class people – this is not a rule of thumb – are more keen to be filmed because it’s giving them some opportunity, and all those social dynamics come into play. Mostly you can sense that people are okay with the filming. Sometimes people were not aware that we were shooting, and if I felt it was embarrassing, I would ask them.
We had three production periods and during the first it was me and Pieter Liechti filming. He would shoot tableau stuff and I would shoot more intimate stuff, but in the edit that fell away. For the second and third production periods I shot both kinds of things, so I shot about 70% of the film. The first shoot period was three-and-a-half weeks, the second and third were about two to three weeks each.
On the beach
THE COUPLE THAT YOU SHOOT UNDERWATER IN PART THREE – DID YOU GET THEM TO DO THAT, OR WERE THEY DOING WHAT THEY DID VOLUNTARILY?
I just asked them if I could film them underwater. I have spoken on the phone with her about the scene.
ONE OF MY FAVOURITE SCENES IS WITH THE GUY WHO LOVES WATER. I FEEL UNDERWATER AND AWAY FROM THE WORLD WHEN HE’S ON THE SCREEN IN THIS SCENE.
I tried to have a kind of internal – external thing going. So the archive is an internal reality, and the surveillance footage is like a nightmare, an(other) inner reality.
HOW MUCH TIME DID YOU SPEND IN THE OLD AGE HOME?
Overall, the film probably appears that a lot more time was spent with characters than really was, partly because of careful selection and good characters. And over the years you develop a way of filming that develops meaningful stuff very quickly. There were a lot of chance encounters with people on the promenade. Of all the characters, I probably went back to the old age home the most – on about five or six occasions. Maybe it was the same with Aubrey. There wasn’t that much filming with characters because it wasn’t meant to be a character led film. I needed more depth out of vignettes, so that’s why I maybe went back to certain characters.
HOW DID YOU FIND YOUR CHARACTERS?
I never met the child – Law (the singer with the skateboard) – he just happened into the film, while I was filming. Then I met him by chance a while later at the Hare Krishna thing on the promenade. Most of what you see just happened as it was and I only arranged to meet up with some characters again.
Most of the characters we found as we were filming, e.g. we knew we wanted to film at the old age home and then we met Jean. JP started speaking to the camera while we were filming the yellow bib campaign and Law just appeared. Abdoeragiem we found because we had been speaking to people at the pool and he said interesting things; people suggested we speak to Marlene because she was involved in the rate payers’ association. The guy writing the postcard just happened to be there; Aubrey just walked into the lens and started performing. It was largely a question of me and the crew walking around and finding things to film.
JP on his cell phone
SEA POINT IS KNOWN AS AN OLD JEWISH NEIGHBOURHOOD, AND YOU CUT FROM THE WOMAN WHO FEELS THERE IS NO PLACE FOR THE WHITE MAN IN SOUTH AFRICA TO THE SCHUL – ARE YOU TRYING TO SUGGEST THAT JEWISH PEOPLE FEEL ALIENATED AND SHARE THIS WOMAN’S PERSPECTIVE?
There are these two stereotypes in the new South Africa: firstly, nothing has changed, and secondly, racial apartheid has become replaced by class apartheid. Both of these things are true, but both of these things are limited as well. How do these different realities co-exist?
This is a reflection of a white community being isolated and at the same time Jewish people have also gone through persecution and have struggled to find, or have had issues with belonging. The Jewish history complicates whiteness as well, so it does both things. There’s this historical thing of Jewish people, so it makes you think that whiteness is also more complicated, it’s not a uniform thing.
That scene has to do with identity and belonging, whereas the alternative would be to cut to a lot of rich white people, which would not have said anything interesting and people would have laughed at the stupid whities. And you have a responsibility to avoid saying what people already know. Jews have also been victims in an extremely tangible and radical sense, so the idea of the white as the oppressor, also breaks that a little bit – but without dictating – for consideration.
YOU USE SOME VERY DATED CCTV FOOTAGE IN THE FILM. THE FOOTAGE DOESN’T LOOK LIKE IT WAS SHOT IN SEA POINT – WHAT PURPOSE DOES IT SERVE IN THE FILM?
I thought it was an internal reality (of violence) in people’s minds. The promenade means getting away from the violence – I think crime is a big part of the South African identity, so this space represents something away from that, and does also partly feed into the racial politics of South Africa. The film also tries to show two sides of the coin, e.g. it’s easy to condemn the yellow bib campaign as liberals trying to clean the neighbourhood of the poor, but ten to twelve years ago in Sea Point people were being shot on the streets.
Sea Point Promenade
IN YOUR FILMS, WHEN WE SEE PEOPLE DOING DRUGS (ESPECIALLY SMOKING OUT OF A BROKEN BOTTLE NECK), THEY’RE ALWAYS BROWN PEOPLE. WHY DON’T YOU EVER SHOW WHITE PEOPLE OR BLACK PEOPLE DOING DRUGS? THIS IMAGERY COULD REINFORCE THE STEREOTYPE THAT CAPE TOWN COLOURED PEOPLE ARE DISSOLUTE AND AIMLESS, AND ALSO NATURALLY INCLINED TOWARDS DRUG ADDICTION.
Firstly because the previous two films were shot in Bonteheuwel, which is a so-called brown area, and that (smoking drugs) related to the themes of the film. In this film, this happened while we were there – I didn’t see anyone else smoking a bottle neck, except that guy and the racial thing was not relevant at that point. That scene comes out of Aubrey speaking about having to fight to survive, and then we see this beautiful place with someone smoking drugs – so it’s in a context of finding a way of coping with the difficulty of being homeless.
It wasn’t a comment on race, but it kind of relates to the next scene, the watermelon scene, with kids playing and it’s kind of trippy – so there’s something about being stoned and looking at things in a different way. So you look at kids inheriting the future and violence; it plays with your idea of looking at it and you feel different things about kids who are going to inherit the earth, a suggestive thing and the dope smoking sequence prepares you for the trippiness of the scene – it goes from one to another very nicely.
But beyond that, I think there’s also the scene with the rent boys – it’s clearly a multi-racial group and they speak about smoking drugs. I can understand that you might see that as a representational thing, even though I don’t see that as a racial representation.
Of course there’s a long history of representation, but a documentary is the interplay between reality, political intention and subjective, artistic vision and how these come together. Any film has a political-representation dimension, so you have to be aware of the implications of the film, but I think this film is so strongly grounded in a particular place and is so much about what was found, that I think in a way it’s an honest representation of this area. So, there’s the yellow bib campaign, where they want to fight against drugs and you could make a political argument that this guy (smoking the bottleneck) is weak and harmless, but look at all the energy expended to get rid of him.
But the other thing is that the film, I think, actively engages with stereotypes, specifically with Aubrey, the drunk homeless guy: he doesn’t drink most of the time – the presumably drunk scabrous homeless guy. The film consciously takes you beyond the stereotype and actually shows … the film is about visions. The film does make you uncomfortable on purpose and you’re meant to feel the discomfort in it. With this film it’s so critical of whiteness, it so clearly goes beyond the stereotypes of this person just being this or that, that I think it’s important to have that. What makes Aubrey interesting is that he’s someone who is easily discarded by society – first racially and now by class – he has had no benefits in the new South Africa; he has made mistakes and is almost symbolic of someone who has lost out in both systems – in the old and in the new South Africa.
The film has enough honesty and depth to go way beyond reinforcing racial stereotypes. It so looks at how those things relate to the opposite: there are many scenes of coloured middle class people. I think a lot of critique of representation comes from a fairly conservative position. I think the film is honest and often interference with the film along political means can be dishonest.
Lion's Head in the background
I’M NOT SURE WHY YOU HAVE THOSE GIRLS DANCING AT THE OLD AGE HOME INTERCUT WITH ARCHIVE BLACK AND WHITE FOOTAGE OF WHITE PEOPLE LAUGHING AT BLACK PEOPLE PERFORMING – ARE YOU SUGGESTING THAT THINGS HAVEN’T CHANGED AND THAT THESE OLD PEOPLE FIND THE GIRLS RIDICULOUS? BECAUSE I DON’T THINK THEY FIND THE GIRLS RIDICULOUS.
The current day concept is uncomfortable for me because the kids look so unhappy. There is some continuation between sixty years ago and what’s happening now. The girls are from a rural community and there’s something really bizarre in that contemporary scene, where the kids are not smiling and the old people are also a little bit uncomfortable. I’m not sure about that scene: there’s something that’s really uncomfortable for me, but I can’t cast a 100% interpretation.
It does link to the past and it was also in the context of Jean having spoken about her relationship with apartheid. The film does not clearly condemn or force answers and political interpretations, but it makes you think about why you feel discomfort and gives the space to maybe work things out. I loved those old ladies when I met them – they’re charming and lovable – but at the same time I’m aware that their nostalgia is different from other people’s memories of the past. My relationship with the older generation is a tricky thing – you have an immense love for the older generation, but you find their politics problematic. You are part of certain social and family structures that you can’t disengage yourself from and the old ladies was the means for me to explore this. I want to recreate the discomfort that I feel, or my own conflicts around this, through watching the film.
WHAT PURPOSE DOES THE APARTHEID VIOLENCE ARCHIVE FOOTAGE SERVE? IT’S NOT IN SEA POINT …
I don’t think a filmmaker’s in control of their own film – you’re borrowing from reality. If you make a film openly and honestly, it can be much bigger than you and much wiser than you. I think different people will get different truths from it.
I think the apartheid footage is about dealing with the legacy of the past and I thought the nostalgic footage needed to show something different, a different past: in a way you had the protected white middle class memory of apartheid, but there was a different reality where people were fighting and being oppressed in the townships and I wanted to make you confront the two together. The struggle and horror of apartheid wasn’t visible in Sea Point; you didn’t see the police brutality in Sea Point, but at some level white middle class people knew it was happening. It was an internal thing, like the crime footage, an internal memory that people have in their heads.
I’m sure some black people who have seen the film have experienced that vision, so it is an internal reality of memory for some black people.
The pool at sunset
WHY DIDN’T YOU SUB TITLE AUBREY SAYING THAT JP IS FROM THE DA, IMPLYING THAT WHAT JP SAYS IS NONSENSE OR NOT BELIEVABLE? I THINK IT’S INTERESTING THAT THERE IS THAT SENTIMENT TOWARDS THE DA (DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE) AND NOW AN INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCE WON’T GET IT.
That specifically was an instance where I thought getting into the party political meaning would be complicated. On one level it’s about the DA, and on another Aubrey’s saying it’s because JP’s a white, liberal, so it’s the same thing. I think the broader meaning is clear without having to reference the DA. Party politics are self-interested and there’s always political expediency involved. Think of it more in broader human political terms, rather than party political terms. Urban policies of the ANC and the DA are not always that different anyway, but the ANC feeds of the myth of being a people’s party, while keeping an empowered upper middle class position. So, it’s not fair to simplify the class and rate debates according to political party lines.
IN PART FIVE THERE IS THIS SEQUENCE OF SHOTS WITH MOSTLY BROWN PEOPLE BUYING TICKETS TO USE THE POOL. WE DON’T SEE THE MOSTLY WHITE REGULARS WHO COME THROUGH EARLY IN THE MORNING WITH THEIR SEASON TICKETS – WHY DID YOU LEAVE THIS OUT?
I expect that some of the pool goers will be disappointed that there’s not more emphasis on the training culture. The demographics of the pool changes throughout the day and that whole swimming thing wasn’t that interesting for me. We should have probably had a bit more, but it was difficult to find a place to fit that in. I did try a scene with just swimmers, but I couldn’t find a place where it would fit nicely, so I incorporated it in chapter two. There is a scene shot at the same time as the scene in chapter 1, when, in summertime and over holidays a lot of people from poorer areas do come to the pool, so the queue was demographically representative during the most part of a summer’s day.
It’s a bit similar to that scene in The Mother’s house where Miche admits to using drugs and it cuts to all the women in the market, so that at the end of the film, all the experiences you’ve had through the film, are seen in the ordinary person’s face: you look at the same kind of people in a different way at the end of the film, so maybe you have a sense of what they bring with them. The shots at the ticket booth are held quite long and some people eventually saw there was a camera there, but then we cut out before they saw it.
SO WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY?
I would have had more of a kind of level of vision, like have more of the subjective, trippy element. I think there’s a conflict between director POV and character POV, which has to do with a positioning of my voice and the character’s voice. I think that conflict is a reflection of what the film deals with, but I think that could have been improved upon. I think there could have been more of a director’s POV, more of a vision and more deliberative.
I think sometimes the film moves too fast for me, but that’s a question of how the overall film moves, which could have worked out better with longer editing. I would have liked to have been able to try some other scenes, but I couldn’t go on any more. And clearly I would have liked to have shot it with a proper budget, because I would have liked to have shot some of it on film and I would have liked to have had a month or two with a good editor to take it to another level. Even so, Silver Docs described it as “the very best that documentary film has to offer”.
We’ve had good responses and at private screening in South Africa, people have really loved it. There will be many people who don’t get it, but you’ll have either that and people who’ll love it. If some of the political questions had been stated more forcefully, it would have not been right: the film gives you the space to work things out for yourself.
Interviewed by Tina-Louise Smith
