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THE WOUND
*****
Dir: John Trengove
Starring: Nakhane Touré, Bongile Mantsai, Niza Jay Ncoyini
(South Africa, 15, 1 hr 28 mins)
Every year as a part of South African Xhosa culture, young men from the tribe are brought to the mountains of the Western Cape to participate in a coming-of-age ritual. The process involves a circumcision performed by appointed “caregivers” who guide them through their journey of becoming a man in the time they spend there, healing. The tradition has been highly criticised in modern times, having resulted in the death of over a thousand men and many losing their manhood – the caregivers are not medically trained. But however far removed this world is from the seat you sit upon watching these traditions play out on screen (which aren’t easy watching), this is the tradition in Xhosa culture. And one that is deeply and profoundly respected here.
All actors cast were first-language Xhosa speakers and all had direct experience of the initiation. Leading actor Nakhane Touré is a celebrated singer, songwriter and novelist and The Wound is his screen acting debut. He is also out. The unignorable cross-over between Touré life and the film’s narrative brings forth a chilling rawness to the overall deliverance of the film as a piece of art, presented to us.
John Tregove’s story is a nuanced and delicate exploration and interrogation of these traditions, and the questions surrounding their integrity – and who has the right to declare it so – or otherwise. A multilayered examination of Xhosa culture, the film successfully manages to deal with issues regarding homosexuality, class and race all at the same time, without once seeming even slightly self-conscious in doing so.
The tone is set early on; rough, gritty and shocking. The violence present in the sex scenes seen in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005) are echoed. Both films deal with men brought up through the language of violence and, having been raised to communicate through violence, allow it to infiltrate other areas of their life, including their sexual expression. The need for masculine affirmation through performance is no less urgent because they are attracted to the same sex – the language they speak does not change because their emotional landscape has. Indeed, perhaps the language is even louder because of this.
The examination of class is brought through Niza Jay’s character (who is also openly gay). “A lot of the city boys don’t come out here anymore,” one of the initiates says; “they don’t know what it means to be a man,” playing into this sense of the rejection of Johannesburg city life as an act of defiance in the face of Westernisation and ‘whiteness’. “This rich boy thinks he’s better than us,” they say. “I can tell he thinks he’s white.” The sentence speaks a thousand words.
The character development throughout is exquisite. The absolute need to tell a story authentically allows for the need to acknowledge us as grey beings: neither all good or all bad – with most of us falling somewhere in between the binary. And it is done so well here. The use of character development also is sublime – as a tool for plot deliverance which in turn, tells the story of the tribe, without the need to hear their voices. The visceral love the two men share throughout the film morphs in form and dips in and out of ambiguity, never not standing in the shadow of the question: what does it mean to be a man? Ans ultimately, it is the tribe’s answer that divides these men, but also unites them. Leaving us again – falling somewhere in between.
words RUTH SEAVERS
The Wound is out now in selected cinemas and screened at the Iris Prize in Cardiff in 2017.