William Russell speaks to a South African director about her first
film and the culture of violence that exists in her homeland.
ELAINE Proctor's first feature film, Friends, is a moving story about
three young women, two white, one black, living in Johannesburg whose
lives are thrown into crisis when one of the white women is revealed as
an ANC activist and bomber.
Born in Johannesburg -- her mother is Afrikaans, her father, a
pathologist who represented Steve Biko's family after his murder -- she
grew up fully aware of the impact of apartheid on everyday life. Her
brother was in exile in defiance of conscription into the army, an
Afrikaaner uncle was on the far right of the pro-apartheid movement. She
went to the progressive Woodmead School, and then trained as an actress.
Finding the work available to her in South Africa, mostly in
television, was vacuous and uninteresting, she opted to study film
instead and came to London to study at the London International Film
School. She returned home to make a series of documentaries about the
racial and political conflict there, and in 1986 came back to Britain to
study at the National Film and Television School at Beaconsfield. Her
graduation film, On the Wire, about a soldier undergoing psychological
trauma, won the BFI award for best feature in 1991.
In Britain to promote Friends, she was both pessimistic and optimistic
about what is happening in South Africa. Things had not changed since
she made the film, and everyone was still killing, she said. But the
fact that the elections, to be held in March, were ''written in stone''
was an important shift and hopefully after that things would improve.
''It could be argued that an ANC victory would be something to
celebrate,'' she said. ''I think they will be democratic and reverse
some of the imbalances of the past, but I fear that the forces on the
right, both of the white and black communities, will be intolerant of
that victory and continue to respond violently. I am not sure what the
forces of the state will do then.''
She believed that the good would outweigh the potentially damaging
response, but thought that the white right had been underestimated.
''It does not take a lot of people to exploit the existing ideological
and political differences, and the moment that happens you are talking
of large numbers of other people fighting,'' she said. ''That is the
problem with the far right, and there are also very conservative black
elements like Inkatha.''
What depressed her most was the culture of violence in which children
were growing up. Most children of colour in South Africa had grown up in
extremely violent circumstances and learnt incredibly violent responses,
she said.
The apartheid years had created a real culture of violence that was
not going to go away immediately. But there were a lot of things going
on which implied things were getting better for the people. If the ANC
did half of what they were promising to do more people would be better
off than they were now.
''Once the power base is changed there is a possibility people's lives
will be improved and that is something to be pleased about,'' she added.
''Do people have too great expectations? Unfortunately, I think they do.
There will be a lot of limitations on the new government because the
economy is not healthy, and what it will cost in terms of administrators
and skilled people and hard finance to alter the current situation
sufficiently will mean some people do not get what they were promised.
They cannot all be housed, health care and schools cannot immediately be
improved.
''The effects of the apartheid system on life must be changed as soon
as possible and I am concerned there may not be the resources to do that
as quickly and completely as it should be done.''
White South Africans would go through something of a revolution in the
years to come, she added. They would always live there and be South
African but it was going to be a delicate process. ''I am hopeful about
the future, but I am very saddened because there will be much violence,
death, and destruction. But at least the process of change is happening
at last.''
Filming Friends took her to the township of Wattville in East Rand,
although the original intention had been to use Alexandra township. The
situation there and in Soweto was, however, too volatile whereas
Wattville, outside Johannesburg, although poor, was as healthy a ghetto
as one could get. Because of good leadership it had not been divided by
the spiralling voilence which has affected other townships.
''There were times we were in some relative danger, but no more than
someone shooting a film in East Los Angeles. We spoke to everyone in the
township about it because in my experience it is better for people to
know what your intentions are in an environment like that. We spoke to
the ANC. They did not censor us. We spoke to the local civic committees
about what we were doing. We never felt in any kind of danger and we
filmed at night and in difficult circumstances.
''It was a measure of what organisation can do. It was impossible to
put a foot in Alexandra township. What we had to do was find pockets of
peace in a place riven by general violence.''
* Friends is showing at Filmhouse now and at GFT from January 30.
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