I haven't made up my mind if I enjoyed this movie or not when I came out of the cinema so I will just keep to some general impressions and let you make up your own mind if you see it:
Minor spoilers under the first point 1 due to the comparisons to other films.
Reasons I found this film lekker :
1. We have seen variations of this film below in such films as Harold and Maude, Lolita and maybe even Shane. This Afrikaans version is refreshing just for the fact that it's from an Afrikaans cultural perspective.
2. It delves away from the main story in interesting ways. The poet's research on the farm and the use of wildlife to drive some of the drama is a fresh and interesting way of filmmaking. It occasionally moves away from plot heavy storytelling and lingers which is quite entertaining.
3. The contrast between the poet and the boer family gives the film energy. Contrasts such as these are often used in film, but this is an interesting mixture due to the fact that poetry is not often placed in the same world as that of the boer farm.
4. The actors did not feel like drama school students or reruns of the usual South African actors. An Afrikaans person might disagree with this. The main character was played well with just enough complexity and thankfully not a lot of pretentiousness.
5. Thankfully it stays away from the racial issue which was a nice change for a SA film.
Reasons I did not find this film so lekker :
1 It felt like I was watching a soapie sometimes along the lines of Isidingo or Egoli. The story line ultimately did not bring the viewer to a place of insight in the characters or the Afrikaans culture.
2 Why were all the female characters so strong and all 3 of the male characters so weak? This is not a weakness in the film , it just felt strange, biased, unrealistic and maybe too much of a modern take on the early twentieth century. This point could also fall into the above strengths of the film.
3 I would have loved to have seen more scenery of the countryside and panoramic shots. The cinematography sometimes fell short of giving a sense of time and space.
