Movies to Watch From South Africa
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With all the holiday-themed movies and shows that pop up on streaming at this time of year, it’s incredibly refreshing to find one that manages to make a formula work simply by being excellent at its fundamentals. With an eminently likable lead in Katlego Lebogang, Yoh! Christmas (which is based on Netflix’s own 2019 Norwegian series Home for Christmas) goes through all the heartbreak and the ridiculousness of app-driven dating in one’s thirties with real sincerity. Even if it takes Thando a good long while to find even just a decent match, the show never harbors any resentment towards its characters—grounding everything in its protagonist’s very real, complicated fears and insecurities. It’s an inviting, comforting watch that moves with a spring in its step and looks fantastic doing it.
Vibrantly and energetically led by a lively quartet, Supa Team 4, though not wholly original, is still a refreshing children’s animated show. There is a slightly new take on the dynamics: a leader with a sense of justice, an intelligent yet shy caregiver, a level-headed athlete, and a hot-headed food lover. It keeps the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle quartet formula interesting.
With episodic villains (leading to the big bad in the shadows), the show reveals the double lives of our teenage protagonists while exploring the neo-futuristic rendition of Zambia’s capital and a surprising focus on socio-political and environmental issues. It’s a series that takes intelligent, talented Black girls and empowers them to be themselves, even as they save and protect.
Undeniably breathtaking animation meets uncomplicated narratives and breathes life into this 10-episode speculative anthology. These rich stories take the sci-fi genre and unfurl a multitude of possibilities for a futuristic Africa. Although the episodes are short, there are more hits than misses as the focus on succinct stories creates a net positive viewing experience. Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire boasts an explosive variety of animation styles that make simple yet heartfelt stories shine. The transition from high-action vibrant stories like Mkhuzi: The Spirit Racer to the dark, terrifying visuals of Surf Sangoma in the first half displays the amazing talent of Africa’s filmmakers.
Diving straight into the mystery, never holding back on the steamy scenes, Fatal Seduction is a quick, addictive melodrama. It’s no exaggeration to call this series an erotic thriller as it follows marriage deteriorated by secrets and miscommunication, with a web of lustful characters caught in the crossfire. But under the flings and affairs is the fallout from the heinous death of a child. Although there’s the exploration of sexuality and sexual desires, the show offers much more as it tackles miscarriages, infidelity, and trauma. From its opening scene, we know Nandi is arrested and with every twist and melodramatic reveal, the series is easily binge-able – if only to see how many secrets can be unearthed in seven episodes (before Volume 2).
The Queenstown Kings is a sports film that has plot points we’re all familiar with – alcoholic father trying to seek forgiveness from his son, a tempting offer for fame and riches, the standard training montage and more. These plot points sometimes go into melodramatic territory, but the film’s relationships make these scenes feel sincere, especially with the family dynamic that drives the film. And as Buyile strives to better himself to become a good example to the team, and Fezile makes different choices from his father, The Queenstown Kings feels sincere as a reminder of the better side of South African men, one that can be uncovered if they, and their community, believe in a higher dream.
More a showcase of various styles of animation than an expansion of Star Wars lore (and all the better for it), Visions finds some of the freshest expression for these tired tropes—rendered in what are easily the best visuals this franchise has ever seen. Across the 18 episodes of its first two seasons, the series communicates the mystical nature of this universe with much more ease than the live-action films do. And even as Visions begins to repeat some of the exact same ideas and story structures in multiple episodes, the repetition also begins to feel like the reinforcement of a universal narrative throughout time and space: there will always be light that will counter the darkness, often coming from the bonds between family and friends.
Based on the 2021 Turkish series Fatma, Unseen takes the same premise and sets it in Cape Town. Fatma is now Zenzi Mwale, a house cleaner looking for her missing husband, despite how everyone else already wrote him out as a deadbeat convict. Mwale, portrayed by Gail Mabalane, is a sympathetic character, and Mabalane’s restrained performance earns empathy each time her search leads to certain dead ends (pun intended). Even as the show goes into generic territory, the house cleaner’s journey still feels compelling, as the series has a great grasp as to how this thriller’s tropes work, especially for a character whose work and worries mostly remain unseen.
It comes on strong—as fantastical as a fantasy can get—but One Piece is a thoughtful and full-hearted adaptation that bides its time in building a big and bountiful world. The characters are bright and animated, easily matching the magical place they’re in. The action and adventure are thrilling, even though they’re occasionally hampered by some CGI snafus. And the story is epic; it stretches out to the ocean’s deepest depths, where we join Luffy in meeting all sorts of interesting characters. I admit, as a newcomer to One Piece, I did initially find the series a bit cartoonish for my taste, but I was eventually won over by its unapologetic epicness and theatrics. If I found it as delightful as it was, I’m sure fans will find even more to love.
A relatively straightforward story of a village of Sotho people building the courage to resist unwanted development on their land and the erasure of their culture, the rousingly titled This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection wastes no time on the oppressors’ point of view. For director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, there is no debate: these people are more important than any markers of progress hoping to displace them. Their struggle is rendered in some of the most crisp and colorful cinematography you could hope to see, with a powerful performance by the late, great Mary Twala front and center, channeling so much sadness into fury and determination.
Craig Foster’s bond with an octopus takes the spotlight in this heartfelt documentary set in the cold seas of South Africa. The title hints at the nature of this bond: the tentacled creature shows the human outsider the ropes in her watery den.
Both parties have an endless curiosity about one another, giving the filmmakers Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed much fuel for this sentimental doc. My Octopus Teacher features Foster diving in the ocean every day and waxing poetic through voiceovers about the remarkable ability of a wild animal to connect with him. This all takes place amidst his obsessive mapping of said animal’s habitat during what appears to be a mid-life crisis. It’s beautiful, yes, both visually and in its message of nature being something we can connect with to find meaning, but much of the story revolves around what Foster feels the octopus is doing in relation to him, and not about what it’s doing, period. The documentary becomes an exercise in making something that exists peacefully in its own little world all about some guy.
For a film that centers on an unlikely emotional attachment, it does explore the ocean and present the adventures one can embark on due to curiosity. Despite its faults, it manages to be informative and shows off gorgeous underwater cinematography.
It’s not easy to stand out in the crime genre, but Catch Me a Killer does a pretty good job of it. It’s set in South Africa, where dynamics like race and gender are slightly different than in the US or UK. It’s also based on actual crimes solved by Micki Pistorius (Charlotte Hope), a chain-smoking read-headed profiler who helps develop the South African police’s investigation processes. But setting and character quirks aside, what makes the show unique is its hero’s philosophy: Pistorius believes that each killer, no matter how demented and harmful, deserves to be understood. “Is there something wrong with me, that I don’t hate them?” she asks in an early episode. Do murderers deserve empathy? It’s a question that follows her in every case she takes, in every corner of the country, and it’s also one that she finds increasingly hard to answer. Catch Me a Killer is a mostly straightforward procedural, but it often dabbles in the existential, making it a thought-provoking and soul-stirring watch.
Based on the book of the same name by celebrated author Neil Gaiman, Good Omens is a fantastic story about an angel and a demon teaming up to save the world. Michael Sheen and David Tennant play the deities who go against their superiors’ apocalyptic orders after having grown too fond of both the fun and follies brought about by the human race. This unexpected team-up, along with the creative use of Christian concepts and the comedic chops of all the actors onboard, are what make Good Omens a subversive, inventive, and thoroughly entertaining series.
There are a plethora of father-son road trips in film, but rarely portrayed on the path are fathers with their trans sons. That is because most queer stories often focus on the romance, and if not the romance, the coming out process. Runs in the Family does things differently – it’s the connection between trans drag performer River and his father Varun that lovingly stays the same. The easy, comforting dynamic between them is something that needed to be on screen, and it’s what makes the movie shine. While the film still showcases the extra hurdles society sets in front of them, and the way other people let them down because of discrimination, this father-son duo is the one thing they can depend upon. Runs in the Family is by no means perfect, but their natural father-son dynamic is something everyone needs to see.
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The Siege of Jadotville is a different kind of war movie. It doesn’t recount famous battles or portray renowned heroes – instead, it’s about heroes and events that went completely unnoticed. Namely, the Irish 35 Battalion ‘A’ Company – a group of youngsters who are sent out on a U.N mission to the Congo. What was supposed to be a simple positioning quickly becomes one of the most sought-after locations and the battalion of 150 ‘war-virgins” find themselves up against 3000 mercenaries led by experienced French commandants. And what a tribute this film is: it’s well-paced, powerfully shot, and the acting, led by Jamie Dornan on one side and Guillaume Canet on the other, is absolutely perfect.
African Folktales Reimagined is exactly what it says in the tin. The anthology isn’t exactly a cohesive, one-plot show – it’s a collection of folktale-inspired short films from six different countries, by six different filmmakers, funded by grants from a rare Netflix-UNESCO partnership. As such, the collection features a variety of genres and styles. If you like Westerns, you might want to watch Katera of the Punishment Island. If you’re into Afrofuturistic sci-fi, try watching Halima’s Choice first. Into supernatural stories? Watch Enmity Djinn. Katope and MaMlambo lean more on the fantastical side of the folklore, while Anyango and the Ogre feels like a straightforward drama. It’s a fairly varied collection, and there’s something here for everyone. African Folktales Reimagined takes a modern twist to the folktales that shaped the continent.
Crime films usually have cops chase down robbers, not become them. This quirk in Andre Stander’s life makes him the perfect subject for a biopic, as this life-changing career shift must have had a compelling motivation. It’s certainly a great reason to make awesome action sequences, daring escapes, and, of course, the swindling scenes. It’s fun to watch. However, as the plot progresses, and the crimes get bigger and bigger, the film ends up losing sight of its main character, paying more attention to the capers instead of the reason behind it, and whether or not that reason is true. Stander is a heist film that forgets it’s a biopic, but it’s more fun because of it.
Tsotsi, a delinquent from Johannesburg, South Africa, realizes after shooting a woman and stealing her car, that her baby is on the back seat. A movie with very few words but which manages to be extremely touching. As you witness the transformation of Tsotsi, through his increasing affection for the baby, you will be astonished by the amazing actor, who manages to communicate so many feelings through his sight. This film won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The fourth Kandasamys installment may only appeal to viewers who’ve been there from the beginning, but no matter your history with the South African Indian series, The Baby really offers far too little. With unconvincing third-act drama and extremely loose connection tissue between scenes, it becomes very difficult to see what the point of all this is, unless you are truly charmed by the bickering of this dysfunctional family. Unfortunately there isn’t any wit to the clashing of personalities here; these are characters who aren’t even trying to get on the same page, so set in their stubborn ways that it becomes infuriating to watch them butt heads for no good reason.
A crazy, anxiety-inducing thriller that turns Adam Sandler into a thrill-generating machine, which in its own speaks volumes about the rhythm of this movie. It follows a jeweler who gets himself in trouble with what feels like all of New York – a gang, Kevin Garnett (the NBA player), other jewelers, his family, odd twins that appear out of nowhere – everyone. This all happens in the backdrop of him feeling he has “hit big” and is on the verge of receiving a lot of money.
If you watched Good Time, you know what to expect from directors Safdie brothers: excruciating tension that keeps building up when you thought it wasn’t possible. And that might be the only problem with Uncut Gems; the tension doesn’t feel that different from Good Time, and having watched one you can guess where the other one is going.
There are some very interesting, culturally specific touches to In Your Dreams that tease a much more interesting adventure beyond the first two episodes watched for this review. Unfortunately, these first two installments can be a real test of patience—not necessarily because of a slower pace than expected, but because of how little the main plot moves forward. The series seems to want to establish its characters before anything else, which makes it even stranger that their development is made up primarily of cheesy comedy and confusing decisions made for the sake of kickstarting the plot. And when danger finally rolls around (in disappointingly short bursts), these characters just don’t have the depth to inspire any concern over their well-being.
The first My Spy film was a fun caper that let kids imagine what life could be like if they trained and fought alongside the country’s top agents. This second film, set in Italy and following a now-tween Sophie, tries to be more grown up than the last but instead falls flat in every aspect. The script is bland, the plot is cliched, and even the performances aren’t as exciting this time around. To be sure, there are still laughs to be had, especially when Bobbi (Kristen Schaal) is onscreen, but for the most part, the stacked cast’s talents are wasted. Bautista and Ken Jeong, who plays the boss, are perennial worrywarts, while Anna Faris (in a secret role) is stuck playing a caricature. What a waste of comedic potential! If you’re planning to see this with your kids, it’s harmless good fun, but don’t expect to pick up anything new or worthwhile watching this.
Social media has undeniably changed the way we perceive each other, and Netflix’s South African series Miseducation understands this. The show has fun getting its characters canceled online and getting them to ridiculous antics to make up for it. The cast, including the charismatic Buntu Petse and the hilarious Prev Reddy, seems to have a great time getting into hijinks only university life offers. However, inconsistent characterizations and being unwilling to get more deep keep this show from meeting its full potential. It’s still a fun watch, if you’re into soapy teenage comedies.
Frankly, it’s a bad idea to rush into a marriage for a financial incentive, but there’s something sweet about A Soweto Love Story with the way the plot plays out. As the brothers race to win the family home, there’s the standard romcom shenanigans where secrets are revealed and sabotage happens, but the brothers never go too far, and the way they play out is just the right amount of playful and serious. And as they do so, it’s sweet to see the three relationships bloom without the problematic, not well-thought-out issues that plague these kinds of ensemble romance films. That being said, it would have been even better if they established a close, familial chemistry between the brothers, but the way it plays out isn’t too bad. A Soweto Love Story isn’t particularly unique or deep, but if you’re looking for a simple, lighthearted romcom to watch, this isn’t a terrible choice.
For some people, grief isn’t easy when a parent dies, especially if that parent is someone you wish you would never become. Grief can stir up a mix of uncomfortable emotions, like shame, anger, and guilt, and it can be very confusing to explain what’s happening to people who aren’t experiencing the same. There’s plenty of that here in South African drama Prime, with Marius losing his racist father, but the way the film depicts this grief is quite hard to follow because of the way it handles its other genres. The human horror of becoming someone you’ve hated is muddled with the randomly arranged sequences, sluggish pace, and mumbled dialogue, which is a shame, because the ideas and images could have made a better movie.
