Another Movie Guide

Jerusalema DVD Review

With the plethora of “Rags To Riches” gangster flicks, comes a plethora of cliches. Some of these include “The Religious Mother”, the “Now We Have Money” montage, the “This is The LAST Job” conversation, the “Drug Addicted Gang Member” and of course “The Quirky First Robbery Attempt”. Now the film in question does contain these cliches, but it pulls through due to certain base qualities that put it ahead of your average, mediocre crime film.

Lucky Kunene (Seiphemo), a poor street kid from Soweto, models himself after Al Capone and Karl Marx. He traces his belligerent and colourful criminal upbringing, beginning by boosting cars at gun point with his loyal companion Zakes (Nyakale) before moving into more frightening and potentially harmful forms of robbery and graft. Realising the short term existence of that kind of life, Lucky transforms himself into a real estate developer who forms a plan to harness the profitable housing projects of the Hillbrow tenements.

As mentioned the film does contain a fair amount of cliche’s or homage’s from various other crime films. But where Jerusalema pulls away from various imitators is in its cinematography. The films action set pieces are always tense and well shot, providing tangible tension and danger. Other films are paid tribute with great respect and it is always quite clear that the film has been executed by visionaries who possess a great passion for the genre, as apposed to simply hacks biting ideas.

Another aspect of Jerusalema that is refreshing is the multiple languages on display. Granted that you have to be rather switched on and attentive whilst watching the film as it effortlessly slips in-between various dialectics. This pleased me as many films set in foreign countries generally only stick with one dialect and ignore others that were actually in frequent use. This greatly adds to polish and realism of the film as it stays firmly within its own world.

If anything sticks with you after seeing Jersusalema, it’s that crime doesn’t pay. Of course this is nothing we haven’t heard before, but I really view it as a breath of fresh air and simplistic honesty. While recently every second new crime film ends with a moving message and a sense of hope and possibility, Jerusalema goes back to a Dead Presidents-esque dark ending that we are missing in contemporary cinema.

By Will Freeman (Contributor) – http://www.planeturban.com.au/movie_reviews.