The Whitman Independent

A resurgence of alternative pulp art movements reminiscent of the insurgent 80's South Africa is on the prowl in the shady alleys of a city between two towers.

The integrated culture force that produced acidic commentary of social conditions seems to be the similar reservoir for these filmmakers’ vigour that purports to a degree to draw upon emblems of a bohemian heritage.
Remember The Free Filmmakers? Those bohemian, post-POST and Drum protégés inspired by something beyond the Beatnik and Harlem Renaissance? These youths might seem like artsy skhothani’s staffriding the wave of transit cranial economic products; but don’t be fooled. 

They are well-read.

And iThuba Gallery is among the headquarters of this new wave of alternative spaces pioneering an art businesses that offer space for such births of Alt-Zef Kinders with needled mouth initiated in post-modernist verbatim.

The ideas spun around these young minds are perhaps a post-apartheid an avant-garde representationalism of a new rebellion against commercialized exhibitionism associated with mainstream art, and their rustic tongues speak of a wildly diverse array of concepts.

Concepts and art practices of film legends like Goddard and Lynch are interwoven with critiques of Pasolini's morbidity, while analyses of Man Ray’s and Burrough’s film art seems sacramental to this congregation of dissidents.

The ever so unpalatable works of Warhol, the surrealism of Stan Brackhage and Maya Deren are inspirations which seem to be the cannons of the alternative sentiments prevalent among this generation of artists.

Despondent yet undefeated, they are reclusively waging a war against common sense.

Their efforts as independent artists, thinkers and filmmakers represent that critical period of important output in our burgeoning florid and sensuous capture of today's lifestyle's plasticity and our era's "new psychology".

Glued to the sidewalk, bouncing a cigarette bud; I listen to Sibs Shongwe Lar-Mer explicate philosophies inherent in his films.

"I battle to be laughable. Most of my narrative films lack comical elements. No comedy, just morbid characters, dealing with unnerving realities."

He sums up his approach to infusing his emotional temperament into his film craft by admitting that "my films are quite dark, I have been told.

But they draw from real incidents, persons and emotions possible to any feeling entity."

This I believe eloquently puts a name to the unkempt face lurking behind sunglasses of self-deprecating suburbanite youths, carried by soles of dirty sneaker tsotsis that trod township streets directed by minds serenaded by violent art and inebriated literary genius.

"The only film of I wrote, directed, filmed and edited - that has tinges of humour and elements of comedy is Territorial Pissings.

In the film, there is a constant ambiguity between seriousness and joking. You are never certain whether the characters themselves see the seriousness of a situation.

Will they laugh soon? Or, the scene is quite laughable but suddenly BANG! We are serious as hell."

I wasn't there during the screening, but I gathered that a vast array of narrative expressions, styles of filmmaking that tread beyond confines of traditional cinema structures and purely antipathic processes of producing film art were at play.

It seems most of the films exhibited here are films filled with contradictions; emotional, physical and social.

These artists are making films without formal, structural, organic laws; theirs is a visceral and unbound expression of man’s inner convolutions.

The series of screenings at the iThuba Gallery kicked off with Thabang Moleya's showcase, which is said to have stirred both intellectual debate and emotions.

It is however regrettable that the screenings have now been rescheduled due to the curator's ill-health, and alas, I am looking forward to more potent surprises of future film artworks to be exhibited once the universe has conspired towards Sibs' speedy recovery.

Images: The Whitman Independent