ANC Cinema Of The Grotesque

 Dear ANC (Whoever You May Be)

At a local bughouse, I saw, many years ago, an Italian karate comedy. I never thought those three words could find a place in one sentence. I never thought a movie that bad could ever be made, let alone shown. Lest you think I exaggerate: one of the highlights of the movie was a scene in which the hero soils himself while trying to lift an anvil with his 'invincible hand'. 

It was that bad. Yours is worse. Yours is something the Coen brothers might have heaved up after a night of revelry on dubious pineapple home-brew and expired Joburg street chicken. A grotesque, surreal blend of horror, comedy, crime fiction and the richest, ripest horse manure ever to carpet God's green earth. The brothers could never have deamed up the hosing of people queuing for disability grants. They would have rejected as too far-fetched the pit latrine corruption stories. Actually, the Italian karate comedy grows in stature as one delves into the mass grave of disasters left on your watch.

This is the sort of concoction that would have audiences on their feet - heading for the exits. We have no choice but to watch the whole movie. We paid a high price for tickets. The theatre is pitch dark. Hard to tell where the exits are. 

Even when we close our eyes, we cannot escape the nonsensical soundtrack. It grinds and screeches on like something from Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' telescreens.

Who can forget or erase lines like (apologies for some repetition from previous post):

"And I argued one time with somebody who said that the country comes first, and I said as much as I understand that, I think my organisation, the ANC, comes first.”

 (On SA having the fifth highest murder rate in the world):"I am wondering who said that?"

“We’ve been standing here for 26 seconds and nobody has been raped.” 

And this was not necessarily the worst of the drivel that passed for dialogue.

Here's another quote; Amery, quoting Cromwell to Chamberlain:

''You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go!'' 

Sums it up.

Richard