Fanie Fourie’s Lobola
Director: Henk Pretorius
Writer: Henk Pretorius, Janine Eser
Based on: Nape’a Motana‘s novel
Cast: Eduan van Jaarsveldt, Zethu Dhlomo, Jerry Mofokeng, Marga van Rooy, Motlatsi Mafatshe
[I got a screener of this film.]

Plot:
When Fanie (Eduan van Jaarsveldt) is dared to ask out Dinky (Zethu Dhlomo), things don’t look very promising at first. But then Dinky agrees to come to Fanie’s brother’s wedding – if Fanie has dinner with her and her father to try and get him to stop setting her up. But what starts as a practical arrangement ends up being genuine care. Even if things aren’t made easier by Fanie being Africaans and Dinky Zulu.

Fanie Fourie’s Lobola (a lobola is a traditional dowry procedure in South Africa) is one of the sweetest films I’ve recently seen. It’s cute and romantic and funny. It touches on the racial issues in an intelligent way but doesn’t let them take over. I loved it.

Fanie Fourie’s Lobola is a movie about race relations in South Africa but it keeps that part rather light, packaged into a romantic plotline. That makes those issues easily accessible but at the same time also a little too easily resolved – when the story calls for a change of a racist heart, it is delivered without much fuss, even if it wouldn’t have been very realistic.

But at the same time the film isn’t all fluff without content and it does have smart things to say about race relations in general and particularly in South Africa. I wouldn’t say that it covers the entire extent of the issue, but it’s a nice starting point.

It’s particularly nice because it’s a film that is genuinely funny. They really had me right at the beginning when Fanie’s brother Sarel performs (he’s a singer and entertainer) and they maintained that sense of humor throughout.

But more importantly I absolutely loved both Fanie and Dinky. Both are extremely likeable characters and Eduan van Jaarsveldt and Zethu Dhlomo have good chemistry. I really wanted to see them happy together and their story had me grinning (and then crying and then grinning again) throughout.

Summarizing: wonderful.