Reactionary Reviews | Silas en die Ysbeer op Tafelberg | dir: Zandré Coetzer
Disclaimer: I am not an eight-year-old child.
Silas en die Ysbeer is a fantasy set in a world where a single mother can afford a two story apartment in Higgovale on a firefighter's salary.
Oh, shit, I mean...
Silas en die Ysbeer is a film made “for all our children”, which is why it explicitly refers to a time when the Cape was Dutch and there are no black people in it.
Whoops, no that’s not it...
Silas en die Ysbeer in no way borrows, neither musically nor by stealing a scene wholesale, from Where the Wild Things Are.
Whoops, again, no...
Silas en die Ysbeer stars Neil Sandilands as an ageing artisanal burger restaurant where all the cool kids used to go to do cocaine. There is a distinct lack of hats designed by Crystal Birch.
No, maybe, um...
Silas en die Ysbeer is a film about a young child processing the death of his grandmother through a series of dreams, who learns that parables and imagination are a way through trauma.
Or...
Silas en die Ysbeer is a beautifully hand-crafted parable of a film, filled with childish wonder, solid performances, charming music and a tender message. The gentleness with which it carries an expertly understated lesson of grieving is remarkable. Filled with humour and playfulness (and fart jokes), yet managing at the same time to ground itself in an ordinary realism.
I wish I was a child again.