(South Africa, 85 min.)
Dir. Riaan Hendricks
Programme: World
Showcase (World Premiere)
The Devil’s Lair
is sure to be one of the talking points at Hot Docs this year. Not only is it
the sole offering from South Africa at the festival, but this bold
observational film by Riaan Hendricks contains rare and extraordinary footage that’s
sure to straddle the line of documentary ethics for some conservative viewers. The Devil’s Lair takes the audience into
the home of a Cape Town drug lord named Braaim. Braaim is the leader of The
Nice Time Kids, which is the biggest gang in the district of the Cape flats. The
extent to which The Devil’s Lair
reveals the workings of The Nice Time Kids might cross the line, but if it
does, it’s in these moments that the film is most thrilling.
The Nice Time Kids seem to be on the verge of a turf war
between rival gangs The Americans and The Boy Scouts. The opening scene of The Devil’s Lair reveals the tension
between the rival gangs, as the film begins with disorienting footage of a
shooting in a town square. Braaim then spends much of the film contemplating
the assassination of a rival leader. It’s kill or be killed, and, as Braaim
says, “The fastest live the longest.”
Braaim earns his money distributing drugs in the working
class area of Cape Flats, which is a peripheral part of the city, so much of
the film observes the leader portioning meth and tasting the product with his
pals. Other moments in the film offset this insider’s look at a life of crime
and go inside Braaim’s family home to meet Braaim’s wife, Gadija, and their
children. The moments in which Braaim plays with his kids seem commonplace—he’s
a loving father, despite his recurrent substance absence and his
illegal/immoral way of providing for his family. The toll of Braaim’s lifestyle
is readily apparent in the testimony that Gadija offers as she invites the
cameras into her home. She is now considering divorce from her husband after
putting up with his behaviour for seven years: she never knows if he’s coming
home and she fears that every gunshot she hears could signal the death of her
children’s father.
The even-handed Cinema Verité portrait of Braaim’s
lifestyle, however, is matter of fact and non-judgemental. Hendricks’ steady observational approach is accented by an
appropriately minimalist score. This is a way of
life on the margins and a means of providing when few opportunities exist. The Devil’s Lair draws out Braaim’s murky
compounded relationship between deviant behaviour and escape: the more one
escalates activity to expand empire, the more one comes closer to attaining the
goal of a better life elsewhere. At the same time, each action provokes a
reaction that could leave Braaim dead and his family without a husband and
father. The Devil’s Lair is Breaking Bad in is grittiest form, as
the stakes are real and the costs are clear.
The Devil’s Lair
reveals the consequences of Braaim’s lifestyle in a climactic scene in which he
and his closest allies plot the murder of their rival. The assassination plan
isn’t anything advanced or elaborate that Hollywood might imagine—The Devil’s Lair depicts drug life more
in the vein of The Wire. It’s shrewd,
though, as Hendricks’ camera captures Braaim calmly explaining to his hoods
that they should do the hit under the cover of schoolchildren. It’s an ambush
synched with the bell time.
The scene proves the ultimate example for which one might
wonder if The Devil’s Lair goes too
far. How much secrecy should a documentary afford its subject? Should the
filmmakers have contacted the police? Should someone have been alerted that a
man’s life is at stake? There’s a moral code underlying The Devil’s Lair, however, which suggests that an alert might
simply have turned Braaim into the victim. Alternatively, the access afforded
to Hendricks by Braaim (they’re childhood friends) would be broken by an
intervention. The camera, after all, is only an observer. It could also be an accomplice depending on which argument one wants to take.
The
Devil’s Lair gives festivalgoers a rare chance to be a fly-on-the-wall to
witness the inner mechanics of a criminal “family”, as well as the drama of the
leader’s own family, which bears the consequences of their father’s means of
providing. Braaim ultimately seems repentant by the film’s end, though, so doc
fans are sure to debate The Devil’s Lair
throughout the festival.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
The Devil’s Lair
screens:
Wednesday, May1 – 6:30 pm at TIFF Bell Lightbox
Thursday, May 2 – 3:330 pm at TIFF Bell Lightbox
Please visit www.hotdocs.ca for more information on tickets
and show times.
