Ryland Fisher
Watching Address Unknown, the evocative short film written by Anton Fisher (no relation) and directed by Nadine Cloete, as part of the Durban International Film Festival over the weekend, left one angry and uncomfortable, and feeling the need to watch it again as soon as there is another opportunity.
The 24-minute film is beautifully shot in parts of Woodstock that resemble the old District Six and the characters, with their minimalistic dialogue, transport you to a time and place not too long ago when the people of District Six were being forcibly removed from the outskirts of Cape Town’s CBD to the unfriendly sand-swept townships on the Cape Flats. The simple guitar music, played by members of the Cape Cultural Collective, with its ghoema-based melancholy, adds to the construction of an image of a time gone by.
The story is simple: a postman called Joey has to mark many letters as “Address Unknown” because the District Six houses where they were supposed to be delivered does not exist anymore and there is no record of where the old residents are. The houses were bulldozed as soon as its inhabitants were removed.
The letters are supposed to be returned to the postal depot but, at the end of the movie, we see the white postmaster, a young white man who Joey calls “Baas”, burning the letters in a fire. One can only imagine the love stories, the financial dilemmas, the academic achievements, the health updates, the family relationships and many others that were burnt in that fire.
Joey holds on to some letters, addressed to his best friend, Ebie, who was moved to Bonteheuwel on the Cape Flats, but who he has not heard of since. The postman, Joey, then sets off via public transport to Bonteheuwel to find his friend to hand him the letters but also to rekindle their friendship.
Ironically, Joey, who would have been classified as “coloured” under apartheid, also lives in District Six and faces forced removal like everybody else in the community. The post office will be closed and, very soon, letters to him will also be marked “Address Unknown”.
For me, the scenes where Joey speaks to his white boss, brought back memories of going to work as a teenager with my father, a labourer at a shopfitting company, and hearing him address the white bosses as “Baas” or “Meneer” (the more liberal ones) while they called him by his first name. That humiliation of my father in part inspired me to find ways of actively opposing apartheid in the 1970s.
The backdrop to this short film is growing anger against apartheid, as seen by protests in Bonteheuwel where Ebie’s political awareness has grown. When they eventually meet, he tries to convince Joey to join the struggle against apartheid.
Because it is only 24 minutes long, many things are left unsaid, which is the mark of good short films.
Hopefully as this film makes its way around the international film festival circuit, there will be more opportunities to watch it online. But this is the kind of film that should be screened at schools and universities across the country, followed by discussions about the damage done by apartheid to our country. It could also be used in corporates to develop a greater sense of our apartheid history.
The barren land that was once District Six stands as testimony to the story told in Address Unknown. It is as relevant today as it was then.
(First published as a blog on this website on Monday, 14 September 2020)
