For those used to documentaries coming with narrators, music and handy voice-overs to point you in the way of a feeling, it might take some adjustment to get used to watching Orania. This German documentary focussing on the titled area of South Africa is something of a flashback to the slower pace of old television documentaries, a study of a topic where shots are held, there is no voiceover or friendly voiced interviewer probing the locals and no running monologue theorising what we’ve just seen on screen. The area in question lies in the Northern Cape of South Africa, a vast area surrounded by, well, nothing really. A community in the centre of this region are isolated and cut-off from the rest of their nation, not imposed on them but rather by their own choice in an attempt to maintain the core values they hold dear. This is Orania and Orania is strictly whites-only South Africa. Decades after the ending of Apartheid, this small rural spot has been chosen to house numbers of Afrikaans, oppose to joining in the multiculturalism of the world outside in favour of building a nesting place for similarly minded Boers around the country. It’s a community headed by a group of elders, keen to install their values in the next generation of Afrikaans, an idea that was born by what they see as necessary to preserve their culture.
It’s a culture that holds work and religion as the key pillars of their community, something that’s drilled into you upon arrival where the street signs are a flashback to 50’s style American small-town billboards, reading like a town manifesto ‘Self working, self reliant’, ‘winners never get discouraged, discouragers never win’ and ‘our ideal binds us together’. Ah yes, the ideal. What exactly is the ideal of Oranians? Racism is keenly discarded as part of it by all on camera, although there are clear signs that if it isn’t at least overt or violent it is definitely discrimatory and impassive. A local swimming pool owner jumps at the chance to prove his chumminess with his black delivery man but the stilted exchange and acknowledgment by both that he must not go within 25m of the towns borders only go to heighten the underlying prejudices. There’s also the intimidating billboard that reads “I speak and think in Afrikaans”. It’s more guarded within the older, establishing members of the community believing their country’s rainbow nation as a “recipe for disaster” a notion dating back centuries. They see their role as keepers of their European ancestors’ way of life, one threatened by the black locals who, centuries ago, were initially the employees of these ancestors. This refusal to accept any kind of multiculturalism is an intriguing line to follow, one frustratingly ignored or brushed over at times by director Tobias Lindner who perhaps sees that as a different sort of documentary which is feasible enough - Louis Theroux has already lived amongst a similar Boer community for television and you sense Lindner wants to bring us a more rounded view of life within the walls (metaphorical, they haven’t bricked themselves in. Yet).
We arrive in Orania with new a family including Mum, teenage son and minibus driver Dad. The father comes with aspirations of a fruitful business ferrying the locals around and out of town “transport is the bond between Orainia and the new South Africa.”, until he realises the locals’ pesky lack of interest in the new South Africa gets in the way. He also takes to the airwaves to reel in new clients where he is warned to address the issue of ‘foreigners’ on the bus – his Afrikaans speaking only admission is still deemed too liberal for some. The radio station itself is seen as the voice of Orania, becoming a mainstay in the film coming across a perfectly pitched parody of a hospital radio station from the fifties and often delivering the funniest moments: two old ladies read a ‘recipe of the day’ about Quince and there’s a no-panic approach when the internet goes down (again) meaning the already-on-air weather report is unknown, “Oh well, let’s speculate” continues the presenter as he proceeds to look out the window and report what it looks like.
This dated looking life continues in the distinctly 80’s school video looking introductory video that the teenage son has to watch, one that explains what is expected of him – a lot of work on farms – and ending with the sign off “Orania is not for sissies”. His friendship with his charismatic housemate – a former Johannesburg resident with a few records to his name - is the easiest to enjoy in the film and his subsequent ban from Orania serves to ruin it for us as well as him. You can sense that Lindner was just as upset knowing his best character was no longer in town but has his fingers in enough other story pies to go back to.
Unfortunately none can quite hold our attention as easily and heightens the sense of a lack of focus in the film. Orania the place is a potentially fascinating area of interest sadly Orania the film seldom peeks this interest.
Matthew Walsh
Rating:12Release Date: Friday 28 September (18:30- World Première) Tuesday 2 October (12:45)
Directed by: Tobias Lindner
Cast: n/a