BREATHE/UMPHEFUMLO
South Africa, 2015, 90 minutes, Colour.
Busiswe Ngejane, Mhelekazi Mosiea, Pauline Malefane, Zebulon Mmusi.
Directed by Mark Dornford- May.
In 2005, the team behind the making of this film, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for their interpretation of Bizet’s, Carmen, U-Carmen?. The next film was a gospel story, a focus on Jesus, Son of Man, which also incorporated a great deal of song, especially for the star performer, Pauline Malefane, portraying Mary, mother of Jesus.
This time they have done an interpretation of Puccini’s La Boheme, setting it in the township outside Cape Town, where Carmen was set, Khayelitsha. The setting is also contemporary, using a group of university students for the central characters. This works quite well, incorporating the arias and other music from Puccini but also having a chorus, at times, of the main musical theme sung in choral fashion.
The story makes sense in the contemporary setting, poor students, winter, cuts in electricity, the cold – with the information that the area is one of the worst for tuberculosis in the world, certainly a place for Mimi to be ill. She falls in love with her fellow student, as he does with her, very briefly presented during song. There are moments of happiness, Mimi leaving because of her illness, returning with her friend Zoleka (Pauline Malefane) only to die.
The film is vividly made, with an emotional pull, and a celebration of Puccini’s music.
1. A contemporary of interpretation of an opera coming from South? From a choral ensemble? Local black artists? Operatic music? Local music?
2. The work of the director and the ensemble, the prize-winning film, U- Carmen, the gospel drama, Son of Man?
3. The setting, Khayelitsha, the township, the information about tuberculosis, the prevalence in the township? The setting for Mimi and her illness?
4. The popularity of Puccini’s La Boheme? An adaptation, contemporary, local, on the outskirts of Cape Town, the huts, the University, the shops, festivals, concerts? Apartments, the car wash, the railway and the overpass?
5. The cast, skills in acting, singing?
6. The introduction to the cast, and names, the details of their studies, the image of their achievement, art, drama, philosophy, botany?
7. The situation, the winter, the winter scenes, the electricity cuts, the dark – a contemporary equivalent for the darkness and cold of the original opera?
8. The men, friends, smoking the joint, the authorities arriving, the chase?
9. Lungelo and his seeing Mimi, her botany work, the talk, in the dark, tenderness, falling in love, communicating? Lungelo and his hiding? The introduction of Puccini’s music, the singing, the choral background of the familiar theme? The credibility of the falling in love within the space of time?
10. The boys, Mimi going with them, rowdy, the upset, having to report to the University Dean, their being let go? Angers? Especially have the young man who was selling tickets for the Youth Day Festival and pocketed the money?
11. Zokela, a celebrity, the concert, Youth Day? Her bond with the young man, the clashing?
12. Mimi and Lungelo, their arias, their time together, gathering the lilies, the men trying to sell some on the roadside? Mimi with the doctor, no longer pretending, the medication not working? Her suffering, the coughs and the illness?
13. Mimi deciding to leave, Lungelo distressed, the young men working at the car wash? Her return, Zokela and the clash with her friend? Zokela and her
tenderness? Mimi and the memories, her dying, the singing, the pathos?
14. Lungelo and his grief, the two men giving the jacket to Mimi for the cold?
15. Zokela and her friend, reunited?
16. The key elements of Puccini’s opera, blending with contemporary South Africa, black South Africa?
