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White Wedding


What it’s about:


The loyal, committed and very decent Elvis (Kenneth Nkosi) leaves Johannesburg en route to pick up his best friend and best man Tumi (Rapulana Seiphemo) in Durban. The two will then journey on to Cape Town to begin rehearsals for Elvis’s wedding to the beautiful Ayanda (Zandile Msutwana). But things don’t go according to plan when they get lost. As Tumi and Elvis struggle to find their way through the Eastern Cape they are picked up by Rose (Jodie Whittaker), a young English doctor on the run from her own wedding.


What we thought of it: 

This movie sits nicely between two extremes we have in South African cinema. It's humorous, but not laden with toilet jokes and offensive rhetoric that gets people's backs up. Nor is it a deep and serious exploration our apartheid past with heavy agenda as we've seen in movies like Forgiveness. These kinds of movies certainly have their place in our cinematic landscape, but it's refreshing to find a production which does not ascribe to either.

This comedy of errors is cleverly played, although the jokes tend to rely heavily on stereotyping, which becomes dull and stale after a while. There's a depth to the three main characters: Elvis, Tumi and Rose, at the expense of the rest of the cast who come across as one dimensional placeholders, even though, on paper, the gay wedding planner, the suave ex-boyfriend, the traditional mother figure and racist Afrikaners sound like ripe territory for exploration.   

Veteran actors Nkosi and Seiphemo (who were also co-stars on SA classics Tsotsi and Jerusalema) are strong in the leads. There is an effortless dynamic between the two that is effective during the more intimate, calm moments of the movie as well as in their scenes as extrovert masters of disaster. Not only is their acting top notch, but with writing and producing credits, their multi-skilled work on White Wedding is pretty impressive.

The cinematography is wonderful, and as a road trip movie, it also works well as moving picture postcard of the gorgeous South African landscape, taking in the sights of rural Eastern Cape, bustling Joburg, tropical Durban and colourful Cape Town. The proudly South African feeling runs rife throughout.

White Wedding also carries a positive message about the importance of sticking to goals, no matter the challenges you have to go through to achieve them. It celebrates the beauty of our country both in its landscape and people. It may not be Oscar-winning stuff, but it’s worth viewing. South African comedy is going places.

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