SA director's Toronto fest hit at Diff

A scene from Impunity.

A scene from Impunity.

Published Jul 22, 2015

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THERE’S a lot of sex, violence and, well, boobs, in Durban-born writer and director Jyoti Mistry’s Impunity.

However, it is the brutal behaviour of the protagonists that powers the story, offering a fly-on-the-wall perspective of life in South Africa. The movie explores the actions of a couple who embark on a sort of Bonnie and Clyde-type killing spree.

After making noise in the Contemporary World Cinema section at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Impunity has found its way to SA… at the 36th Durban International Film Festival.

Shedding light on her very avant-garde approach to storytelling, Mistry shed some light on her vision for this movie.

“This is the South African premiere, and I’m quite excited to be showing it here. I think the audiences’ responses are the ones I am most curious about,” she says.

“I was quite excited to make the film because I really liked the possibilities that the structure of the story offered, in terms of moving between these different timelines, which was quite an exciting opportunity for me. But, also, to think of the way trauma, memory and the different layers at which emotional, psychological and physical experiences work in the kind of way we digest living in SA,” she continues.

In terms of the stylising of the movie, she fashioned it on offerings she’s been exposed to like Badlands, a 1973 movie, to Natural Born Killers and Wild at Heart…

Moviegoers were, in a sense, bombarded with shots of posters on the latest criminal acts. On this point, she notes: “These impressions look at the different levels at which violence operates in SA and continues to leave a strong impression on me.

“Even though I might not as an individual have encountered these acts of violence directly, what’s really interesting is the way we seem to have digested them through our collective imagination. So that’s where the story comes from – or, at least, the impetus of the story.”

She also believes there is a similarity to the Scandinavian film style. Mistry notes: “There are multiple influences in this film. It’s a combination of my passion and obsession with different storytelling methods. The reference, here, is that the underbelly of those films is social violence amid the veneer of a calm landscape.”

The film’s lead cast includes Alex McGregor, Bjorn Steinbach, Desmond Dube and Vaneshran Arumugam.

Dube was present at the screening, as well as editor Khalid Shamis and screenplay co-writer Trish Malone.

Shamis was brought in during the second edit of the movie and shared his take: “When it comes to me, I was the second cut in the film. I de-formed and formed it again. All the characters were there for me.”

Responding to comments on the home-grown movie not conforming to Hollywood’s way of storytelling, where the protagonists always take centre stage, Shamis clarifies: “We weren’t thinking that way, anyway. Like the scene with Naveed Khan and his wife. It’s born out of our own sensibilities.”

Malone adds: “It’s important to have different spaces. You have the two killers. You have the clash between the cops, which speaks to a version of SA, which is very truthful. I think it’s important. To see life through poetic lenses, that was the unconscious intent.”

Despite admitting to not having a great grasp of the English language, Dube proficiently summed up the journey of his conflicted cop character.

He notes: “We got into this film to tell the story of characters we know. And I think the only answer I can give is that we have to be honest with these characters. I had to go find people, cops who live this kind of life or know cops who lead this kind of life – and, I got to tell you, it’s a scary world. What’s scarier is how we have become immune to violence because we are surrounded by it every day.”

At the end of the day, Mistry’s message is unmistakably loud; there are implications to violence from a legal and social perspective.

l Impunity shows again at Elangeni on Sunday at 2pm and releases on circuit later this year.

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