Producers: Eric Abraham and Jack Sidey   Director: Oliver Hermanus   Screenplay: Oliver Hermanus and Jack Sidey   Cast: Kai Luke Brümmer, Ryan de Villiers, Matthew Vey, Stefan Vermaak, Hilton Pelser, Wynand Ferreira, Rikus Terblanche, Shaun Chad Smit, Hendrick Nieuwoudt, Barbara Marie Immelman, Remano De Beer, Michael Kirch, Matt Ashwell, Jaco van Niekerk and Israel Nggawuza      Distributor: IFC Films

Grade:  B

Oliver Hermanus’ film is basically a gay coming-of-age story, but it’s set in a time and place that give it distinction.  Based on André Carl van der Merwe’s 2006 semi-autobiographical book—the title is an Afrikaans ant-gay slur—it focuses on Nicholas van der Swart (Kai Luke Brümmer), a reserved young man who’s conscripted into the army of South Africa in 1981, when the government, still committed to apartheid, was fighting against communist-inspired black rebels on its northern border with Angola. 

Nicholas’ personality is indicated at the farewell party his mother Suzie (Barbara Marie Immelman) and stepfather Peet (Remano De Beer) throw for him before his departure.  The latter is gung-ho, though when his quiet biological dad Miles (Michael Kirch) drops by, he gives his son a gift—a girlie magazine to serve, he explains, as protection against the other draftees, who will presumably sniff out his inclinations.  (He will, in fact, make use of it  before long.)

Later in the film, we’ll see a flashback in which young Nicholas (Matt Ashwell) was accused by a furious bigot (Jaco van Niekerk) of watching another boy take a shower at a summer camp and masturbating.

On the train taking the recruits for basic training, Nicholas stands apart from most of his comrades, and not only because he’s of British parentage (though he’s taken his stepfather’s Afrikaans name) but for his reticence when the others humiliate a black man (Israel Nggawuza) standing at a railway station.  Racism and homophobia, it’s suggested, are two sides of the same coin.

The bulk of the picture is devoted to the crew’s basic training under the brutal regimen imposed by the drill sergeant, Brand (Hilton Pelser).  The intensity isn’t unlike the similar material in “Full Metal Jacket,” though Hermanus’ approach, as shot by Jamie D. Ramsay and edited by Alain Dessauvage and George Hanmer, is far less stylized and more raw and naturalistic. The exception is the score by Braam du Toit, which mixes harsh modernist sounds with classical snippets—thus some of the men’s exercises are done to the same Schubert piano trio that Kubrick used (though in “Barry Lyndon,” not “Jacket”) and there are moments accompanied by a Vivaldi aria and a Bach Toccata.  (Modern popular songs are also utilized.)  The setting designed by Franz Lewis is convincingly drab.

The testosterone-filled recruits are played with gusto by Matthew Vey (Sachs), Stefan Vermaak (Oscar), Wynand Ferreira (Snyman), Rikus Terblanche (Bester) and Hendrick Nieuwoudt (Roos); Shaun Chad Smit plays one named van der Merwe.

Of the trainees, however, it’s Stassen (played sensitively by Ryan de Villiers) who has special significance.  On a rainy night when Brand orders the men to sleep in the trenches he’s had them dig, Stassen invites Nicholas, whose ditch has flooded, to share his.  That’s the beginning of a relationship fraught with danger: there’s already been an incident in which two recruits have been sent off to a notorious psych ward for conduct considered an abomination, and Brand’s attention eventually falls on Stassen, whom he already dislikes for other reasons.  He cancels the recruit’s leave while the others are allowed to depart the base, and when Nicholas returns, he finds that Stassen has been abruptly transferred.  There’s little question where. 

The last act of “Moffie” switches abruptly some months later to the battlefield, where Nicholas’ squad is sent against guerilla fighters in the north.  They fall under attack and respond fiercely, and Nicholas follows his training, though it’s hardly a heroic moment.  A coda reunites him, haltingly, with Stassen after he’s discharged.

The film has many virtues, but its success depends largely on Hermanus’ uncompromising writing and direction, and Brümmer’s controlled performance, which radiates strength beneath a restrained exterior.  Their fine work along with that of their colleagues both in front of and behind the camera, has resulted in a powerful microcosm of a society in which vicious bigotry of various kinds is not only tolerated but encouraged.