“Roepman” recreates a key period from South African history, and places its characters against a backdrop of political conservatism and preservation. “Roepman” excels at evoking time and place. It is 1966. Timus (Paul Loots) is the youngest child of a large Durban-based Afrikaans family, which includes two sisters and an older brother. Like many white Afrikaans men of the time, his father works in the rail industry, and his mother stays home. There is a black woman who helps to keep the house neat and clean. Timus is somewhat fascinated by Joon (John-Henry Opperman), the titular character, who is a “call man” employed to make sure that rail workers wake up in time to get to work on time.
To Timus, Joon is a great young man who has saved Timus’ life on occasion. Timus is growing up – there’s some foregrounding about the loss of innocence – and his siblings have their own stories: brother Braam (Eddie de Jager) may or may not be in love with the girl next door, while his sisters (Beate Olwagen and Desire Gardner) have boyfriend and independence issues. Father (Deon Lotz) keeps a firm hand on the family, with mother (Rike Sennett) as mediator between the patriarch and his children. Lida Botha co-stars in the archetypal wise old woman role as the grandmother.
The film opens with Timus running through the train yard in tears, and the film builds up to that moment for most of its running time. One senses the coming of something ominous early on, and I’m not just talking about the black-and-white photograph of Verwoerd keeping a watchful eye on whatever happens in the living room. There are dodgy characters, such as the grease ball boyfriend (Altus Theart) of Braam’s potential love interest and the gang of young men who spend their time walking around town, reading Playboy and being assholes. It is their leader, Hein (Andrew Thompson), who tells Timus that he’ll be a man only when he “pisses foam”.
As a family drama, “Roepman” is stellar. The story is gripping and, as I said earlier, the film is very well made. It is aware of the politics of the time, and effectively uses it to outline key events in the characters’ lives. When it ends, the film refuses easy answers in favour of emphasising the loss of innocence once more.
If so much of “Roepman” works, what holds it back from greatness? I’ll do my best to steer clear from spoilers.
(1) It is clear that Hein is going to be some sort of villain in the movie. This is an important character filled with insecurity and with a certain pathological element, but the character is totally flat. There’s nothing to Hein, and it doesn’t help that he wears black - if memory serves – in every single scene he appears in. I would also suggest that the role was miscast, but let’s leave it at that.
(2) Despite solid acting from Lotz, the conservative Afrikaner father leans towards caricature. Here “Paljas” actually has the edge; Marius Weyers’s Afrikaner father had a little dimension.
(3) The film is good at developing a sense of dread, and it handles the eventual payoff with great success. However, these darkly dramatic scenes are contrasted with scenes so whimsical that it requires considerable suspension of disbelief.
(4) The film oversells Joon as messianic figure, especially in a shot of a statue of Christ on the cross that has particular significance for the film’s later developments. Like the black-clad Hein, this too seems spelled out.
(5) The “all you need to do is believe” mantra is thin. While certain characters can get away with it when it is appropriate to the plot and emotional payoff, I’m not so sure you could, for example, tell the family’s live-in maid to “just believe and it will happen” with Verwoerd frowning at you. And considering what happens to a major character just before this message is overtly promoted for the last time, it rings rather hollow.
A final word. Director Eilers has a small appearance as the local minister, and in two minutes shows why he’s considered to be such an incredible actor.
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