His Majesty's Building - A Review

For a locally produced film to be intensely experimental, psychologically engrossing and suspenseful while entertaining, is a commendable feat of unprecedented creativity, especially springing from the bulk of redundant narrative attempts by black filmmakers in this country. But my interest here leans more towards the directorial debut of a filmmaker who’s been ploughing his trade in the industry for the past ten to twelve years. From the viewpoint of his patient cultivation of a film language that would set his narrative sensibility apart from most, the film-noir approach served His Majesty’s Building a greater good than detriment.

Set at night, in silent and ominously vacant streets of a metropolis that homes more secrets than many would dare imagine; the film exposes Johannesburg’s sinister lure for concealment. The story, centred on a journey of private investigator Dicke Dibe – is a mystery-riddled investigation of Freddie’s murder.  From the onset, the idea that we are about to witness a dream unfold as prediction; the sudden and lonely death solicits an intently nervous viewership and an equally immersive analysis of events, codes of dialogue and behaviours exhibited by its diverse medley of characters.  The viewer, so suspended in their personal investigations and smoke riddled searches for the killer, also becomes the detective, the victim and at certain instances consort to murder through miserly generated dramatic twists, part resultant from the back-to-front form or style in which the story seems to unravel. Characters play themselves out through meticulously lit shots, rigidly composed in the midst of a theme of lurking shadows, with minimal camera movement, coupled with exquisite performances from a relatively unknown cast.

But for the film to have attracted the attention of seasoned actors such as Luthuli Dlamini, Justin Strydom and the veteran Indian actress Usha Khan; an original concept, leveraged by a well-developed script must have resonated an aura of functionality while posing a variety of enticing challenges for the actors’ inquisitive palates for the unexplored. The complexity of Motshabi Monageng’s voyeuristic character, the serene villainy of the femme fatale (played by blossoming talent Thishiwe Ziqubu) among other perplexing personae that enliven the text, such exemplary performances must have relied heavily on the director’s familiarity with a vision that could not be deterred.

I am of the belief that Luthuli’s seminal performance in SMS Sugarman catapulted him to a stature that most local cast are still to tread, with the exception of some notable inspirational black veteran thespians such as Winston Ntshona, Lillian Dube, Ken Gampu, Sello Maake ka Ncube and recently Mondli Ngubane and Fana Mokoena among a growing number of formidable black talent. His interpretation of character and art of ‘bringing to life’ the enigma that is Dibe, elevated the calibre and standard of performance necessary for a qualitative new cinema from South Africa, requiring even a higher scale of commitment. It is a marvel that the film is in colour in as to not emulate conventional period cinema styles of the 1950’s and 60’s, but still managing to groom this classically convoluted character of a cool black private eye in the tradition of Hollywood’s Humphrey Boggart, both through characterization and adherence to the noir style.

Working with an obviously refreshing ensemble, that managed to expose the depth of Jacques de Silva (seen also in Simon Gush’s Analogues) and Antony Lyon’s subtlety in acting and reacting, we see, for instance, Luthuli rendering a performance reminiscent of the young Zakes Mokae’s bewitching and contemplative portrayal of Steven Sithole - a township intellectual in Henning Carlsen’s Dilemma. With this character, perhaps a memorable behavioural dialect that could eventually spawn a ‘South African Hero Detective’ is being written by Nhlanhla Masondo. I hope the film would thus be the first in the line of investigative thrillers maybe. I hopeit pioneers an era of exploring a variety of personal imaginations of adventure, mysteries and not only be it for detective stories, but a world of other narrative experiences we can muster from our collective creative spirit as a people.

I would have, nevertheless, wished for stricter performance continuity from the Laurel and Hardy caricatures (the two black detectives) especially when they seemed to serve some anecdotal comic relief purposes. Finally but not crushingly, an acute sound department could have captured the best dialogue audio and afforded a bit more time final mixing the music score to complement the suspense crafted by Bonga Nkomo’s visual interpretation of the story.