The Man With The Vacant Eyes

Carla Prinsloo, our researcher, conducted a series of interviews with displaced immigrants. The participants agreed to be interviewed provided that we never used their images or their real names.

Carla interviewed everyone from an 8 year old Somalian boy who aspired to be a policeman when he grew up to an ex military man who spoke about the inconsistencies between government policy and action. One man’s story stayed with me deeper than the others.  It was of a young man who had only been in South Africa for a month (coming to join his father in a spaza shop) when the riots broke out. When his father tried to sneak back to the looted shop to ascertain if there was anything to salvage, his father was shot in the head. He carried a very graphic autopsy photo in his breast pocket.

The picture Carla took of him was haunting. His eyes were bloodshot, but not with rage or resentment. His mouth slightly open. I kept his picture close to me. Carla had captured his bereavement in that one image. His grief was so strong, that from the look in his eyes I knew his father. During the writing process I often returned to this picture of this man: staring into the distance, staring at a future bleak and lonely. 

Setswetla - We Will Always Have A Choice

The first step was to let the information osmose. We did not know at the time what our story would be, but didn’t worry as we knew that The Research was going to inform the direction we would take.

The process was slow. Fabian and I would meet up anywhere; at his place or mine, the nearest mall and even a car park and toss ideas around. Skype allowed us to communicate with Hakeem from his base in L.A. Sometimes we would plot out a story, only to change it the following day. However, whichever draft of the story we came up with, the idea of a ‘search’ was always present.

The photographs Alon Skuy took of the riots were arresting. They spoke of a menace that lurked within the frame and outside the frame. I wanted the film to have this sense of peril. 

The first book I read was Go Home Or Die Here published by the Wits University Press. One of the chapters in the book by Noor Nieftagodien entitled “Xenophobia In Alexandra” shaped one of the themes for me. Noor writes:

“A key moment in the conflict, and perhaps a turning point, was when a group of attackers marched to Setswetla to launch a raid against the African foreigners living there. When they arrived at the squatter camp, the would-be attackers were met with resistance from local residents…Although this was the most resolute example of resistance against the xenophobic attacks, there were countless other instances of local organizations taking very public positions against the violence.”

This had not been widely reported. This got me thinking of the choices we make as human beings. One set of people can choose to set an innocent man alight and another set of people will defend the innocent to their last breath. These choices would be what the characters in Man On Ground would grapple with.