Moffie Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Moffie Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson February 8, 2022

Great films about the apartheid experience such as Cry Freedom (1987), A World Apart (1988), A Dry White Season (1989), and Catch a Fire (2006), each have depicted racial tensions and civil unrest across South Africa. Oliver Hermanus's fourth feature Moffie (2019) represents a departure from those in that it's a more concentrated telling on a specific group. The movie portrays the indoctrination of conscripts into the South African Defense Force. This isn't to say that Moffie shies away entirely from either racial strife or racism. For example, an early scene shows young soldiers on a train pelting food and other debris at a poor old black man (Israel Ngqawuza) standing at a train station.

Moffie diverges from earlier cinematic works in this historical genre by demonstrating virulent homophobia in the South African military. Hermanus and co-writer Jack Sidey adapted André Carl van der Merwe’s semi-autobiographical novel Moffie (2006), which centers on Nicholas van der Swart's furtive life as a gay teen in the army. The film retains 18-year-old Nicholas (Kai Luke Brummer) as the main protagonist in 1981–83 South Africa. After some intertitles that establish the film's historical context, Moffie opens with a farewell dinner for Nicholas one day before he's sent off to boot camp. Nicholas is fêted by his mother Suzie van der Swart (Barbara-Marié Immelman) and stepfather Peet van der Swart (Remano De Beer) as they enjoy a festive meal together. The young conscript jokes about making it back home in one piece. Nicholas's biological father Miles (Michael Kirch) also wishes him luck and gives him a skin magazine with a woman on the cover for "ammunition."

Military life brings culture shock for the quiet and introspective Nicholas. He's ridiculed by the other conscripts because he's of British descent with an Afrikaner surname belonging to his stepdad. They also tease him because he carries a photo of his real dad and when that's pilfered, he offers the porn magazine to the thief to get it back. He also makes the swap so it appears he's heterosexual to all the army trainees. Nicholas becomes fast friends with Michael Sachs (Matthew Vey). The two tell jokes and clean their rifles together. Nicholas also gets to know Dylan Stassen (Ryan de Villiers) with whom he shares a mutual physical attraction. The two lay side by side for a night near a bunker. Both know that not only is a romance forbidden but they could be persecuted if caught in the act. Two conscripts were caught kissing in the bathroom and sent to the infamous Ward 22, an insane asylum for homosexual soldiers.

A lot of Moffie's screen time is spent on the hellish terrain at a South African military base where the conscripts are put through grueling training exercises. They constantly receive an earful from pitiless Sergeant Brand (Hilton Pelser). Pelser clearly channels R. Lee Ermey's Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket (1986) as Hermanus patterns similar scenes from the Kubrick picture. Sgt. Brand inculcates his young men with trenchant, heteronormative white masculinity and fervent anticommunist ideology. At the time, the South African Border War with Angola was going on and Moffie shows a firefight with the Angolans late in the film.

Moffie is ultimately about two identities that Nicholas and the other conscripts have to play. One is the straight regimented soldier who only supports one race and is hellbent on defeating communism. The other is an identity that Nicholas and Dylan must keep secret only amongst themselves. Even if you're white, that doesn't afford you the privilege to be who you truly want to be. The movie offers no easy answers or a clear resolution to the fact that if you can make it out the army alive, that doesn't guarantee a life you'd like to lead.

Moffie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout! Factory and IFC Films have brought Moffie to US Blu-ray with a pretty standard release that comes with a slipcover. The movie appears in its original exhibition ratio of 1.48:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (disc size: 37.55 GB). I can't recall seeing any movie composed in this aspect ratio before. The framing falls in between the Academy ratio of 1.37:1 and the wider 1.66:1. In an interview with the online magazine LENSPIRE Cinematography, director of photography Jamie D. Ramsay states that his "visual language was to echo the photography of the era" and that dictated the need to shoot in 1.48:1. The transfer boasts a very clean image with natural skin tones. In the same interview, Ramsay says he used ZEISS Supreme Prime Lenses because "they have a magic inter-focal range that allows you to get inside that bubble right up close to your actor. Where you can feel their breath and almost hear their thoughts. I wanted the viewer to feel the weight of the boy's experience. And this is a feeling I could only achieve with LF lenses." Ramsay employs a lot of close-ups and close shots of Nicholas (e.g., see Screenshot #s 1, 10, 11, and 13). One of Ramsay's other goals, he says, was for the lenses to lend a "big scale" to the scenes (see frame grabs 5, 16, and 17). Ramsay also indicates that he gave the image a "slight over exposure" to bring out the grain structure. There are no compressional artifacts on the picture. Shout! has encoded the feature at a mean video bitrate of 34000 kbps.

A dozen scene selections accompany the 104-minute movie.

Moffie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround track (3030 kbps, 24-bit) and a downsampled DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1570 kbps, 24-bit). A majority of the dialogue is spoken in Afrikaans with the rest delivered in English. Like the Artificial Eye Blu-ray, there are obligatory English subtitles (e.g., see Screenshot #20). Spoken words are crisp and relatively easy to hear. The surround channels pick up sound effects from the scenes portraying military exercises very well. Composer Braam du Toit's score relies heavily on pizzicato sounds. The violins and plucked strings are rather appropriate since a piece by Vivaldi (Vedro Con Mio Diletto) is excerpted in the film. Hermanus pays tribute to Sixto Diaz Rodriguez (subject of the acclaimed documentary Searching for Sugar Man) as Rebecca Thompson, Ben Ludik, and Aret Lambrechts perform "Sugarman" on the sound track.

Moffie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Director Oliver Hermanus (4:47, 1080p) - the piece opens with Hermanus explaining how the project began, reading the book in 2015, working with two screenwriters, the preparation process, and his training as a director. Afterward, the following actors talk about Hermanus's qualities as a director: Wynand Ferreira, Kai Luke Brummer, Rikus Terblanche, Matthew Vey, Hendrik Nieuwoudt, Shaun Chad Smit, Stefan Vermaak, and Hilton Pelser. All interviewees speak in English, not subtitled.

• Behind the Scenes: MOFFIE Bootcamp (4:28, 1080p) - a short featurette with B-roll footage depicting the military training exercises the actors were put through. Returning for more remarks are Ferreira, Vey, Brummer, Smit, Pelser, Nieuwoudt, Vermaak, and Hermanus. In English, not subtitled.

• Behind the Scenes: The Cast of MOFFIE (5:04, 1080p) - another featurette that shows casting auditions and more behind-the-scenes footage. Brummer, Ferreira, Pelser, Smit, Vey, Rikus Terblanche, Vermaak, and Nieuwoudt offer more comments. In English, not subtitled.

• Behind the Title (4:58, 1080p) - Hermanus, Nieuwoudt, Vey, Brummer, Smit, and Ferreira discuss the significance of the movie's title. In English, not subtitled.

• Trailer (2:08, 1080p) - a post-festival trailer for Moffie with critical quotations. The theatrical trailer is presented in 1.48:1 (average bitrate: 31798 kbps) with DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo sound (1649 kbps, 24-bit). In Afrikaans with English subtitles.

• Bonus Previews - trailers for Little Fish (2:33) and My Salinger Year (2:10) that load before Moffie's menu.

Moffie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Moffie is unlike any other film about apartheid that I've seen. Though it doesn't have the same level of eroticism as Claire Denis's Beau travail (1999), it presents an unbridled portrait of barbaric masculinity in the military that rivals Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. Oliver Hermanus is a director to watch for and I look forward to checking out his earlier features. Shout! Factory delivers an outstanding transfer and a very fine lossless audio presentation. The only extras are EPK materials. A VERY SOLID RECOMMENDATION for Moffie.