Thursday, June 14, 2018

High Fantasy

High Fantasy, dir. Jenna Cato, 2017 South Africa, 71 minutes
Sunday, June 17, 9:15 p.m. Roxie • BAY AREA PREMIERE

High Fantasy
Four friends — a white woman, Lexi; a black woman, Xoli; a coloured woman Tatiana; and a black man, Thami (sounds like Tommy) — go for a camping trip in Northern Cape pro­vince, South Africa. They wake up in their tent, having mys­ter­i­ously traded bodies. The story centers not on how or why they switched, but on how they react to being in a body of a different race and/or gender. Of course, the initial reaction is to freak out, but after that, what does it mean to be a man or a woman, or to be white, black, or coloured?

It touches on the history of white colonization and oppression of black Africans, but also male dominance in society. Most of the film is cellphone videos taken by the actors themselves, interspersed with interview footage taken after they got home in their own original bodies. It’s an interesting peek into the complex social dynamics of 21st century South Africa specifically, but more broadly sex and race as dividing lines among humans, but it felt like it barely scratched the surface. Recommended.

IMDbofficial websitetrailer (YouTube) •

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