Screened in the Discovery Section of last year’s Toronto Film Festival and getting a screening at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, Michael Matthews’ South African Apartheid-themed Western Five Fingers For Marseilles comes with a lot of buzz and acclaim. As another exploration of classic genre cinema from the region, it will heighten the interest made by films such as District 9, which gave real depth and intensity to the sci-fi genre whilst crossing over to the International market.
Set in the last days of Apartheid in a township near the Cape called Marseilles, a group of childhood friends – nicknamed the “Five Fingers” – resist the oppression of South African whites and the brutal police regime. Young Tau shoots two police officers when they kidnap one of his friends in a van, but then runs from the crime scene after he fears the friend dead, but whom is only injured.
Years later, now a convict released from prison for a separate crime, Tau returns to his homestead, where he discovers how the other “Fingers” have changed, including one who is now a local Mayor attempting to rebuild the town. It is only a matter of time before his actions of the past will bring him into conflict with a local gang leader who is determined to create his own separate world of prosperity.
The tone and feeling is very much what you probably have seen in any number of past Western offerings, be it The Magnificent Seven, the Leone classics and, of course, Sam Peckinpah’s ground-breaking and influential 1969 classic The Wild Bunch. One thing that will certainly convince people to see Five Fingers For Marseilles is Shaun Harley Lee’s stunning cinematography, and the film reunites him with the director after they collaborated on his 2010 film Sweetheart. It encapsulates the rural tapestry and texture of a South Africa in transit, and there are some incredibly beautiful compositions on show here.
The key problem the film has is that it succumbs to following a tradition of classic Westerns that we have seen before on any number of occasions. There are the age-old themes of making amends for past sins, the transition of generational intent, the desire to do better for your community, and a lot of plot-lines that would not look out of place in the films of the past. It would have been nice to see more originality that taps into the context of the times and gives more insight into the locality that the film portrays.
Five Fingers For Marseilles also taps into the revisionist style of Clint Eastwood classics like The Outlaw Josey Wales and Unforgiven, focusing on a protagonist who is trying to maintain a moral focus whilst protecting those he comes into contact with. If you sense where those films are structured, then you can anticipate where the pay-offs will be in this film. That said, Five Fingers For Marseilles is well worth the ride for the visual landscape as well as its music and sound, and is a worthy addition to Southern Hemisphere film-making.
FIVE FINGERS FOR MARSEILLES / CERTIFICATE: TBC / DIRECTOR: MICHAEL MATTHEWS / SCREENPLAY: SEAN DRUMMOND / STARRING: ZETHU DLOMO, GARTH BREYTENBACH, KENNETH FOK / RELEASE DATE: TBC
