Windprints

Wicht, a white South African, here tells a factually-based story of the hunting down of Nhadiep (Fong), a mute Namibian outlaw and killer legendary for his elusiveness. It's set in pre- independence Namibia in 1982, SWAPO is engaged in bloody war against South Africa, and there's increasing local unrest between Afrikaaner farmers and native Nama workers. Liberal Johannesburg cameraman Anton van Heerden (Bean) is despatched to work on Nhadiep's story with an out-of-touch English journo (Hurt) given to hanging out with 'colonial relics'. Why has Nhadiep killed only members of his own people? Is he in the pay of racist Afrikaaner Henning (Weyers), who is cynically buying up abandoned farmsteads? Wicht's use of van Heerden to examine contradictions within the white liberal consciousness (including his own?) - the cameraman's objectivity as reporter of events, his status as an Afrikaaner, the significance of his personal involvement in tracking the killer - is, despite its conventionality, brave and honest if not entirely successful. Despite the usual adumbration of roles for blacks, Wicht has the guts to admit the complexity of varying points of view without resorting to simplistic messages.