Song vir Katryn
A two-season mini-series written and directed by the prolific Jan Scholtz, Song vir Katryn is an under-rated, poorly publicised Afrikaans television production in dire need of a movie rights sale.
Ostensibly a boy-meet-girl story starring Afrikaans rocker Valiant Swart and blonde TV sensation Therese Benade, it uses a run-of-the-mill but tight-knit plot to sketch the possible consequences of incestuous, long-term sexual abuse. Rich in innuendo, allusion and direct reference, the series’ sub-text should be immediately apparent to millions of abused women and children who, protecting a dark secret, perpetuate a conspiracy of silence.
Folk singer Jinx (Swart), a doctor, falls in love with waitress Katryn (Benade). While Jinx wanders from scene to scene as though in an ether-soaked daze, he retains a likeable, down-home quality befitting the part. Benade's good looks and slightly wooden acting (suited to her character) make her an unlikely table attendant, but she too is an adequate lead. The couple, much like the protagonists in Claude Lelouch's And Now My Love (1974), spend much of the first series separated by circumstance, misunderstanding, intrigue and squandered opportunity. Their bond is preceded and nurtured by the professional relationship shared between Jinx and Katryn's mother, Hannah, jailed for murdering her abusive first husband.
Katryn wins a national modelling competition and international acclaim, and characters from her working and personal lives fuse to explore relationships, drugs, abuse, sexual orientation and murder. Working the time-honoured cocktail of deceit, denial, love and friendship to good effect, the first season introduces many opportunities for disaster. At its close, Katryn and Jinx find each other, but the heroine with the girl-next-door appeal leaves for London and a year-long contract with her suave, manipulative employer, Ernst Huldebrand.
Katryn's rape by her boss (Huldebrand) in London sparks Song vir Katryn’s second season. It introduces new characters and fires the web of relationships in which Jinx and Katryn have become ensnared. Rejuvenating the plot's careful structure, the rape gives the series' established characters greater depth. Katryn's past leaps to the fore and, as she and Jinx again remain separated by the ghosts haunting her, the consequences of prolonged sexual abuse are allowed to gently impress themselves on the viewer's consciousness. Rather than explore the subject, much of the second season devotes itself to seeing the guilty brought to book. Katryn, finally able to disclose her promiscuous past to Jinx, finds her guilt and shame evaporate in a sugary ending in which all look set to live happily ever after. I don't watch much TV, and pick my shows carefully. I'm a blogger, damn it. I watched Song vir Katryn because it's well-written, with a kitchen-French-cum-soapie flavour. That said, it's also deeply flawed. All on the show work with what they have at their disposal but, in the end, inexperience tells and it's left to the central characters, the story line and Valiant Swart's brand of sentimental-but-bluesy folk-rock to lug poorly developed secondary characters (Bonnie), over-ambitious casting, lousy make-up, occasionally bad dialogue and sometimes abysmal sets to the final credits.
South Africans do not use or contribute much to the Web, especially Afrikaans-speaking South Africans. However, in a country boasting the highest incidence of rape worldwide, this series broaches a subject with which most women have some experience. Identification with Katryn's response to her predicament may not be easy. Personal grief at remembering or reliving horrific experiences might drown empathy for her character. Still, I find it hard to believe Song vir Katryn elicited so little response.
Song vir Katryn is a brave piece of writing. Reworked, refashioned and recast as a movie, it might accomplish more than it appears to have done on the box and the Net.
