Movie Review: Orania (by Tobias Lindner)

A picture of my DVD copy of Orania.

A few months ago, I started a short series about extremist communities. The idea for that subject matter began when I first heard about Orania, a small village in the middle of the desert, more or less in the middle of South Africa, a nation where apartheid used to be the law of the land, not all that long ago.

Things have changed, and nowadays, South Africa is referred to as the "Rainbow Nation". The edifice of legalized racism that was apartheid has been dismantled and, even if some obvious economic inequalities generally could still be found between the races, the world hailed the end of apartheid as a great step forward. Now, South Africa could move past the segregation and racial tensions of the past, and move forward as a unified nation.

But there is one exception - Orania.

Orania is a small village, but it has garnered considerable attention. The fact that I am writing this blog entry about the town, having never been to Orania, or anywhere on the African continent as I write this, should serve as just one illustration of how much attention Orania has received. Of course, there are reasons for this. There are always reasons. Orania is a privately owned community, and the idea for the people that settled there was to build a purely Afrikaner "homeland" of sorts. It has not grown as much as the first settlers of Orania had hoped it might, but the dream still exists, and even persists. This is a village where the residents dream of bigger things. Where apparently, the commonly held belief among town residents still remains what it was at the time that this town was originally founded - an exclusively Afrikaner homeland. This certainly was not a vision unique to those who settled in Orania, as extremist groups continued to advocate for this for years after. Some are still doing so. But what makes Oranians unique is that they actually pursued the dream by building their own community out of what had been a ghost town. They have their own currency, their own radio station, and try to maintain a degree of official and de facto separation from the country that it is smack in the middle of - South Africa. The blog entry that I wrote (published on November 13, 2013), gets more into detail about many of those things.

The attention that Orania more often than not gets is negative, and the reason for that, simply, is that not long ago, Afrikaners used to rule over the entirety of South Africa, under the infamous, brutal system known as apartheid. Back then, the legal edifice of the apartheid system rigidly divided people by race, tribes, and even language. Everything seemed to reinforce segregation, and Afrikaners relied on this "divide and conquer" strategy from the first moment that they assumed control over the government. They had seen it as getting their country back, and in their desire to maintain control over the country, they went to extremes in pursuit of the grand dream of apartheid, and the laws that they created were extensive and extremely polarizing, to the point that Mandela described South Africa during these years as "the skunk of the world". Many people view Orania as an attempt by a tiny minority of Afrikaners to continue some form of the old apartheid days. I have heard it described as a tiny slice of apartheid.

German movie director made a movie about the town, called simply "Orania". Unfortunately, I had not gotten to actually see the film in time for posting that blog, but I finally got a chance to see the film recently.

Predictably, it is a slow-paced film, which is probably consistent with the village of Orania itself. It is a quiet, mostly country town in the middle of nowhere, so there is not much going on. The idea that the residents had, and continue to have, is that of making a blossoming community in the middle of the hostile desert, with a strong emphasis on self-reliance. They wanted to work hard and make this little village the beginning of nothing short of a nation-state.

Perhaps that is the most notable difference between present-day Orania and the South Africa of old, during the apartheid days. During apartheid, the whites established legal and social superiority and privilege for themselves, and had blacks do menial jobs that whites generally felt beneath them. In Orania, everyone does their own work, to sustain themselves and, on a larger level, to help sustain this community. Lindner emphasizes this time and again in the movie, that everyone needs to pull their own weight, and that Afrikaners cannot rely on "foreign" assistance. Foreigners, in the way that this term is employed by people in the film, means essentially anyone who is not an Afrikaner.

It certainly does not look like an easy life. Again, it cannot be reiterated enough that Orania is in the middle of the desert. That means that it is generally hostile terrain, and the elements are hardly welcoming. There are issues with water usage, and the temperatures can be extremely hot. The residents are not always the most responsible when it come to making proper use of what water is available, either, another point that Lindner makes clear in his film, albeit in relatively subtle fashion, allowing the residents or Orania to point this out themselves.

Perhaps one of the most surprising, yet perhaps, in retrospect, obvious limitations, is the lack of much to do in the community. It is mostly agricultural, and there is hardly anything to see or do for many miles. It is hardly a hotbed of nightlife or anything, and so this can be limiting to young people. Lindner follows the lives of two young men in Orania fairly closely, and conflict of the adjustments by the younger generation to adapt to a lifestyle in Orania, with this lack of excitement in a village made by old people and geared towards older values, if you will, becomes transparent rather quickly in the film.

We also get a glimpse into an older lifestyle, as well as world viewpoints, by older, more traditionally minded Afrikaners. It was not ancient history when that mindset lorded over the entirety of this country, and we see that it is also not entirely a relic of the past, either. Some people still fervently believe in it, and we see this in the movie quite clearly. We see prayers before meals. We see a people who look to God to provide assistance and guidance in their lives, and for their community.

Ultimately, we also are able to pierce the fog of misunderstanding, of looking upon this renowned village in terms of rumors or prejudices, and see that they are just ordinary people, albeit going to extraordinary lengths in pursuit of a vision, or a work ethic, or some such thing that they feel separates them from others. They are not afraid to stand alone, even in the face of enormous, scathing criticism.

In some cases, they at least claim not to understand where all the criticism comes from. Of course, most of the world is critical of Orania, and the residents of the town, precisely because it seems a relic of the past. More specifically, it appears as a relic of an unjust past, and those that belonged to the oppressing group are the ones who now act like they are being oppressed, and that this is their way of escaping this oppression. In fact, the ideas, or ideals, that they seem to be pursuing are not all that different than those that Afrikaners held and believed in a former age when they were on top in South Africa. The white minority government had worked towards making South Africa free from blacks, by assigning all blacks a "homeland", and often sending them there against their will. Before long, this idea came to sound attractive for some Afrikaners themselves, who desired their own home state (or volkstaat), although the land that they generally chose was far more inviting than the land that the apartheid government gave to blacks as their "homelands".  The difference, then, is scale. This is a small, largely isolated town. It is a far cry from being a nation-state, or even a city-state. It is just a village, and one where life is exceedingly difficult and challenging, at that.

And that is what is perhaps most remarkable about the people from Orania, and why this film was probably made in the first place. It seems amazing, in this day and age, that several hundred people (and really, not much more than that) decided to drop everything of the comforts of the life they once knew and enjoyed, in order to pursue an abstraction - many Oranians themselves are willing to call it a dream - that cannot be realized without considerable obstacles and, yes, hardship. They deliberately and effectively cut themselves off from the outside world in order to pursue some measure of perceived purity, in the inhospitable desert. But this challenge itself is now a source of pride for them. You get the sense that some Oranians view this as a modern day, new "Great Trek" for Afrikaners.

Orania has received a lot of press coverage since it's inception. But it is almost exclusively critical, with preconceived notions of what the residents are trying to do.

Tobias Lindner set out to create a film that would document the village like never before. As a viewer of the film, you get to meet many of the villagers themselves, and get a glimpse into their lives in Orania. Lindner wanted to go into town and gain the trust of the locals, in order to produce a film that takes an unbiased look at the village and the residents, to determine what works, and what doesn't. I think that he largely succeeds.

"Orania" the movie starts off with Carel Boshoff, the man who really got the whole Orania movement (if it can be considered a movement) started. We see Boshoff driving an old pickup truck, and milking cows, all symbols of self-reliance. This is a scene to a way of life that harkens back to the past. The pickup truck itself would suggest that this is a throwback to several decades ago at least. But the milking of cows in a pastural scene would suggest an even older lifestyle, one that would be more common to typical people perhaps early in the twentieth century, if not earlier. There was one scene that Lindner added, with Boshoff mowing the lawn of the desert, with sand flying everywhere, which was telling. The rural and inhospitable feel of the location is a drawback, and in the movie commentary, Lindner does speak about the need for Orania to industrialize, if it ever were to attract the numbers that Boshoff and supporters of Orania were dreaming of -in the tens of thousands. Throughout the movie, we see the cameras return to Boshoff, who perhaps best articulates "the dream" of Orania. But one thing Lindner is clear about, is that he does not want to simply portray Oranians as racist rednecks, like many people around the world automatically did. So, in that spirit, I thought this little piece from an article a couple of years ago might give the reader pause for thought, before summarily dismissing the man as a racist man with a one track mind about whites (more specifically, Afrikaners) and South Africa:

"Although Boshoff championed the exclusive community, he wasn't a typical white separatist. A professor of theology, he worked in Soweto, one of South Africa's largest black townships, and was paid visits by prominent members of South Africa's black majority party. Visitors included South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela, current President Jacob Zuma and other political leaders within mostly black South Africa."
("Founder of all-white South Africa community dies" by Jenny Gross of the Associated Press (published in The Seattle Times". March 16, 2011: http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2014510936_apafobitboshoff.html)

Carel Boshoff himself speaks during the film about Orania, and makes it clear that it was not designed to antagonize or belittle other races. Rather, according to him, it is designed to preserve a people, and a way of life. It's values and it's history. While some in Orania seem to indeed be there because they still hold the old, racist attitudes, you get the sense that Boshoff is sincere when he articulates his vision of a positive place to preserve Afrikanerdom.

Boshoff died from cancer in 2011.

We also here quite a bit from Carel's brother, Adam, who echoes Carel's idealistic arguments about Orania, referring to it as both an idea, and an ideal. He speaks almost poetically of working in the "warm western winds", and the emphasis, as always with Orania, is on self-reliance, which is an important distinction in a country where privileged whites generally have relied on black manual labor to do the undesirable jobs and tasks that whites traditionally thought beneath them.

The movie also prominently features Christo, a young Afrikaner who is just beginning to taste the freedom of adulthood. He is still kind of under the wing of his parents, and his father, Johan, is trying to start a business, and a new life, in Orania. This family has just moved to Orania, and on many levels, they symbolize the village itself, as they struggle against the odds in order to try to make things work.

Christo will be staying at a place for youths in Orania, where it is clear from the first that there is a clear pecking order that is enforced. Those who abide by the rules will get larger rooms and more privileged over time. By the end of the film, we see that Christo has gotten a larger room after only a couple of months, even though others have waited longer and not gotten that. Christo is the youngest resident in that home, being only seventeen, and he seems to fit in relatively well in Orania. Still, he longingly talks about his life outside of Orania, where all of his friends, and his girlfriend, are. We often see him on his cell phone, presumably texting. His cell phone seems to be one of the few outlets to the world outside, and he is on that cell phone a lot!

Christo's father is attempting to open up a bus service which serves as connection to outside world. We see him struggling, but he does not allow himself to question moving his family into Orania, despite clear setbacks. He sees his new bus service as the link, the connection, between the "volk" state of Orania, and "the new South Africa". With the slow start, he has taken a part-time position helping a local cafe. We learn later (in the movie commentary) that his business failed, and he moved out of Orania, although his ex-wife and son, Christo, stayed on here.

Christo becomes friends with Baksteen, also a young Afrikaner man who is viewed as a troublemaker by the traditionalist Afrikaners in Orania. He speaks a kind of slang from Johannesburg which blends elements of Afrikaans with English and several tribal languages, but he only gets strange looks when he uses it in Orania. I think it is fair to say that Baksteen never really fits in at Orania. He is not what many traditional Afrikaners would consider representative of their values and culture, and the language issue is a particularly sensitive area for Afrikaners, and perhaps accelerates the conflict between young Baksteen and the Afrikaners in charge of Orania. One of the major themes for proponents of Afrikanerdom is that Afrikaner language and culture is preserved. This is underscored when we see a sign hanging in the home of Boshoff, which reads (translated from Arikaans):

"When own language inspires own thinking, we can find ourselves."

So, this is not some minor or irrelevant point. They take their language very seriously.

But this is not the only conflict that people, including Christo's parents, have with Baksteen. He represents what they consider as trouble. Baksteen has a lot of energy, and has no use for a strictly traditional lifestyle. He is young, and understandably looks for more excitement, more action, than Orania can provide for him. Indeed, one of the themes that the film underscores are young desires for more energy and excitement, contrasting to older ways, what Baksteen himself at one point in the film refers to as the "Afrikaner way". This is the conflict of younger people who enjoy modern technology and comforts, and how this contrasts to the traditional Afrikaner lifestyle. We see pastoral scenes throughout, as well as images of traditional Afrikaner values, and contrast these to the youths who seem to possess that restless energy, taking comfort how and when and where they can, and perhaps clinging noticeably to those aspects of the outside culture that they can while in Orania

Yet, you also see Christo, the youngest one in the movie, outright longing for the company of other young people within the community and, eventually, perhaps finding a place among them. He keeps getting reprimanded for his friendship with Baksteen, and everyone seems to clearly feel that Baksteen is a bad influence. Still, you get the feeling that Christo really likes, and even admires, Baksteen, regardless of what anyone else thinks. Even after Baksteen has left, Christo seems to remember him fondly.

Baksteen winds up being one of the main focal points of this movie, even though this may not have been intentional by Lindner. Baksteen has a certain charm, a certain friendly ability in the way that he talks with people. He is soft-spoken, and he is the only one that we see that appears to be comfortable with being a part of the "rainbow nation". Unlike others, he seems comfortable in the presence of non-Afrikaners, and talks normally to a black man in the nearby town of Hopeville (he is one of only two people in the entire film that really talks to any blacks, at least in front of the cameras), and otherwise, he talks longingly about his time and experiences in Johannesburg.

Another interesting character that we keep seeing is "Pottie". He is the caretaker of the local swimming pool, and we watch him go in the pool, fully clothed, and sweep out the dirt on the bottom with a broom. We also see him throwing chlorine against the wind at some point, which Lindner suggested in the commentary was symbolic of Orania itself. Pottie proves to be perhaps the most vocal and provocative supporter of Orania in a way. Unlike the Boshoffs, Pottie does not speak in almost academic terms about Orania. He does not talk about some grand scheme. Instead, he pretty much speaks negatively about "South Africa", referring to it almost as another country. He argues at some point that he admires ants, because they have the strongest work ethic of any creature in the world. He contrasts that with people, and dismissively argues that Mandela essentially told the blacks of the country that they can have all the modern conveniences, that they will just drop out of the sky, rather than having to work for these privileges. Shortly after we hear Pottie talking about his admiration for ants, almost as an unintentional counterpoint to Pottie's (he was not talking directly or indirectly to Pottie's point about ants) , we hear Baksteen complains about how the people of Orania make an elephant out of an ant, talking about, as he puts it, "small shit", and being unable to understand how people can do that.

At one point, we see Pottie joking (or trying to) with some of the kids simply trying to enjoy themselves by cooling off in that pool on a hot afternoon, as he hands one of them one of those foam noodles that have become so popular with kids in swimming pools these days. The thing is, he teases the kid that asks him for it, and specifically, this teasing is about the color of the foam noodle. We can plainly see that it is pink, but he essentially trains the kids, if you will, to view it as another color, namely, green, and he does so with no apparent sense of irony, although we would do well to remember that irony here in this scene. Orania is one of the last places where it is suspected by many that the old attitudes about race still likely lingers in South Africa, and where a strong rejection and denial of the political and social realities that now exist in South Africa by the town folk is strongly suspected by the world outside of the village, reinforcing the popular perceptions and outside attitudes regarding Orania and it's residents as closet racists, and the whole raison d'être for the town's very existence (cynics would suggest it is to continue an unofficial, but still very much enforced, apartheid). This is the kind of thing that can serve as fodder for those who stand opposed to Orania as a whole. When viewed in this context, this scene is dripping with a striking symbolism, as Pottie urges these kids, who are among the youngest residents living in a village that goes to extraordinary lengths to remain sheltered and isolated from the outside world, not to believe their own eyes about the reality, and specifically the color, of these toys, in a country with the troubled and extensive history of violence, oppression, and strict rules based on color. This is a point that is pounded home fittingly not by the director Tobias Lindner (remember, he does not talk or suggest any opinions at any point in the movie), but by Pottie himself, using his own words, and trying to joke around with the kids in his own fashion, while essentially imposing his worldview onto them. More to the point, it is a viewpoint that many would suspect is seething with old racist attitudes and stereotypes that are thinly disguised at best. It is a worldview that, many suspect, is shared by a lot of Oranians, if not perhaps even a vast majority of them.

Perhaps it is fitting that it winds up being only Baksteen and Pottie, out of all the Oranians in the film, that interact with the only black visitors to Orania (actually, at some service station just outside of Orania, as they are not allowed inside of this "Private Property"). These men (the driver's name is Hennie, and he is the only one that speaks before the camera) are delivering chips and other snacks, and Pottie makes a big production when he finally arrives, playing up to the camera, and describing himself and Hennie as old friends going back years, reassuring the camera that they did not hate each other, that there was no problem. They are friends, but Pottie lives here, and Hennie "lives there". To anyone who followed South Africa in books and articles during the apartheid days, hearing Afrikaners talk about how their are no racial problems,so long as whites (and specifically, Afrikaners) live here, and blacks live "there" is nothing new, and would suggest a certain fear and animosity towards these "others".

Indeed, the idea of "parallel coexistence" (a phrase used by Carel Boshoff at some point during the movie) comes up from time to time, and is largely recycled from the old apartheid days in South Africa. It was also stated by Adam Boshoff that "good fences make good neighbors". No real tensions arise when each neighbor sticks to their own side.

It cannot be stated enough that the emphasis in Orania is on self-reliance - Afrikaners do work exclusively here. No others are welcome, and we see early on the main idea that there is a fear that a non-Afrikaner majority (read: blacks) who come in to work and assist in the farm, eventually outnumber the family that hired them, and eventually take over the farm. The logic here is that in the "new South Africa", everyone has the right to vote. In Orania, you get the right to vote so long as you are willing to work and pull your own weight, and that is why they place such a strong emphasis on making sure what no outside laborers are invited into Orania. The residents living in Orania have to do it themselves and, failing that, must hire Afrikaners as their helping hands.

The natural environment of the land that the town resides in is hostile, which is both a source of pride for the Afrikaners hoping that this is the birth of a nation-state for them, as well as a symbol of what they have gone through in their history, how they view themselves, and what challenges lie ahead of them. We continually here about how warm (I think they mean hot) it is there. Also, being in the middle of the desert means that there are problems with the water supply, and we hear some of the radio commentators chastising locals for using water unnecessarily (such as watering their lawn, or washing their cars), and describing such frivolous use of the water supply as a crime. So, we get a clear idea that the water supply is an issue out here in the desert, understandably. The welcome rain that nourishes the land visits only rarely here, although we do get to see rainfall at some point.

Also, we keep hearing the theme of how safe it is, especially compared with the nation of South Africa, which is often referred to almost as if Orania is outside of it. It's not. In fact, Orania is almost right in the center of South Africa, and has not achieved any kind of official independent status, or anything.

One thing that I noticed specifically was the lack of young adults in the village, and I found this paragraph that helps make this clear:

"Judging by the film’s footage, Orania seems to be suffering from a demographic hole: there are plenty of children shown, and plenty of middle-aged and elderly couples, but very few young adults. One young couple, Boshoff’s granddaughter Annabe and her fiancé Fritz, are preparing to start married life together. “Being for the Afrikaners doesn’t mean you are against everything else,” Annabe says softly. But Fritz also hints at another reason why a young person would choose to make Orania their home. “You feel that with your little life, you can make a difference here,” Fritz says. Elsewhere, he complains, it seems that life follows mechanical pre-plotted routes: a cubicle in an office. “Here in Orania new ground is being claimed,” Fritz explains. The pioneering impulses of his forefathers clearly beat strongly within that one."
("Orania: The place where time stood still", by Rebecca Davis of The Daily Maverick, May 13, 2013: http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-05-16-orania-the-place-where-time-stood-still#.UuBMJdIo4sY)

Annabe and her fiancé Fritz get married in the movie, and we see highlights from the wedding. Fritz and Annabe seem to lend Orania a bright future. They are not only young, but attractive and successful. And Fritz's talk about all of the exciting possibilities with laying new ground in Orania and creating something that wasn't there before, truly making a difference, sounds exciting for the future of this community. But when watching the movie commentary, we learn that, while they seem to show a glimpse of a promising future for Orania, they eventually moved away, out of the country entirely and to Tasmania, in Australia, due to a lack of economic opportunities in Orania. They do still support the idea of Orania, though.

Also in the commentary, Lindner suggests that the residents of Orania are not as unified as many outsiders think. But what binds them is this idea, or ideal, of Orania truly being the beginning of an Afrikaner nation-state.

To that end, the late Carel Boshoff makes clear again the mission statement that Orania was founded on in the first place: as an Afrikaner homeland designed to preserve the Afrikaner history, language and traditions. He says:

"Either the Afrikaner people survive, or they disappear. There is no other way. All or nothing."

Indeed, that seems to be the one belief that keeps the people or Orania united: the all or nothing mentality, and the fear that their way of life is being threatened, and faces outright extinction.

As the movie comes to a close, we see Carel Boshoff talking soothingly to, and trying to tame, a brown and very dusty horse, who resists him. He does ultimately get the horse to calm down, essentially mastering him, if you will. In the next shot, we see Boshoff climbing onto a majestic white horse for a ride. The symbolism there is hard to miss.

Ultimately, as a film, Tobias Lindner I think was very successful in doing what he set out to do in this film. He does not give any judgmental commentary in the film. In fact, there is absolutely no narration of any sort. We never hear his voice. He lets those who he is filming do literally all of the talking, and so we can directly judge the merits - or perhaps the lack thereof at times - of what they are saying directly. We see the images of the village and it's surroundings, and we begin to get an idea of what life is like in Orania. We hear the arguments being made from those who first envisioned it, and those who are living it and/or support it now, without hearing what anyone else necessarily thinks about it, other than those being filmed themselves. The documentary does not bombard you with facts, but simply shows Orania like it is, and Lindner took pains to live in the village and blend in as much as possible during filming, to become one with the residents of town. He wanted to make them comfortable in his presence in order to win their trust, and make himself invisible in the process of the movie, and it seems to me that he was very successful in that regard. What follows, then is a movie that has a very specific focus, and will appeal to a relatively small audience of people. This is not a blockbuster movie, or anything like that. That said, this movie should appeal to anyone who would be interested in learning more about the place, and the fact that the town residents themselves appear to have appreciated the movie should speak volumes about the quality of this work. If you are interested in learning more about Orania, then this is definitely a movie that you should find a way of seeing! I highly recommend it!

Here were some links about the movie that I found useful and informative. Several of them proved useful in writing this blog entry:

http://www.screenafrica.com/page/news/film/1575296-A-film-called-Orania#.UtBJidJDvaQ

http://www.citypress.co.za/features/orania-the-town-that-time-forgot/

http://historymatters.co.za/orania-the-place-where-time-stood-still/

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-05-16-orania-the-place-where-time-stood-still

http://www.frontlineclub.com/orania-is-not-for-sissies/