Sea Point Days

Victoria and I went to see this South African documentary on an evening when we were celebrating our 15th anniversary, appropriately enough, as we spent a year fifteen years ago in SA, and half of that time in the suburbs of Cape Town, very near where this is set.

The film by Francois Verster is a rewarding look at contemporary South Africa, through the lens of Sea Point, a racially integrated suburb of Cape Town, and in particular, its huge and beautiful public pool complex and nearby promenade.    

The film is formally challenging - Verster employs no voice over, nor straightforward narrative, instead just watches the comings and goings of the people in the pool, occasionally checking in with a few regular characters; a black homeless man, who struggles with alcoholism but is at times amazingly clear-thinking and philosophical; residents in a white seniors home (very familiar S'African types, though fully adjusted to the realities of the new SA; a couple of cheerful pool employees - including black, white, and coloured (pardon the SA racial terminology).  Through them we take the pulse of the country, its on-going struggles for peaceful co-existence, search for forgiveness, and as always (in my experience), boundless love that its people have for the country itself.

V and I really enjoyed Sea Point Days, and while I think some of this sprung from our familiarity with (and to a degree nostalgia for) the culture, I believe anyone interested in South Africa and post-Apartheid, or more broadly, just the courageous process of a country and its people re-inventing themselves after a brutal past, would find this very interesting.