Someday a movie in which a group of teenagers throw a mock funeral for a hamster, complete with stone-faced pallbearers carrying a small coffin past hordes of wailing kids dressed up to the nines, will deserve a bad review, but today is not that day. Black Burns Fast has an unusual sense of what it’s like to be a teenager in an unusual setting: a religious South African boarding school. The ways in which the kids here get to have a great time being kids announces writer-director Sandulela Asanda as a major talent. It’s been a while since a movie has handled such serious issues with such a light touch, and this kind of heartwarming delight should charm even the most cynical among us.
At the start there are some shades of Booksmart, in that the focus is on the dorky BFFship of two nerdy outsiders, Jodie (Mila Smith) and Luthando (Esihle Ndleleni). Luthando is about the last person to realise she is a lesbian (this subplot is not a spoiler), but the arrival of new girl Ayanda (Muadi Ilung) helps make that obvious to everybody. Ayanda is a spoiled rich girl who’s been expelled from other schools, while Luthando is a scholarship kid very much made to feel like a charity case. Up until now she and Jodie were okay with being in the corner making their wise remarks, but Ayanda’s arrival has thrown everything into turmoil. For one thing, Ayanda is immediately taken up by a clique not called the Plastics but definitely reminiscent of Mean Girls: Zenande (Khensani Khoza), Lazola (Ntisimedi Gwangwa) and Anele (Basetsana Motloung). Anele has an older boyfriend she sneaks out to see – with her friends ‘helping’ aka making a huge racket giggling and shushing each other – Zenande is just as smart as Luthando is without making it her entire personality, and Lazola, well, that shouldn’t be spoiled. Luthando is so drawn to Ayanda that she chooses hanging out with her over studying!! And that means hanging out with the others instead of just Jodie!! But all three of them have been waiting for Luthando to get over herself and make friends, because they are much cooler than she’s previously realised. And of course regardless of where you are, being a teenager means spending a lot of time acting like a big kid.
After the screening many people in the BFI Flare audience began telling their friends about the dumb things they themselves did as teenagers. Wherever you grew up Black Burns Fast is SO relatable. Not just the mock funeral but the seriousness with which people prepare for school dances, and the effort gone into dressing nicely and/or expressing your individuality through second-hand finds. There’s a funny bit of the sound design pinging like radar as Luthando scans the cafeteria for any other lesbians present, and the ways in which the kids make age-appropriate emotional leaps and support each other is extremely funny. There’s also a delightful scene where the kids scent blood as a lady priest gives the world’s most awkward sex ed demonstration and collectively bombard her with questions that leave her crossing herself. At the next mealtime, Luthando picks the cucumber slices out of her food with a frown on her face, too. It’s unusual to see a movie about teenagers emphasise the fact that these are just kids.
This is all done very firmly within a South African context, where the teachers get uncomfortable when apartheid is mentioned even though the friendship groups largely split across racial lines. At one point a little throwaway dialogue, “Say you oath?” “I oath,” that reminds us how different-yet-same the use of the English language is here, too. The kids swap between Xhosa and English amongst themselves, though English is the language of the classroom and an Afrikaans class is mentioned but not shown. Luthando speaks Xhosa with her religious mother (who is uncredited in the press kit), and whose reaction to Luthando’s sexuality is something she deeply fears. There is an undercurrent from all the adult characters that while they personally might not delighted by the ‘rainbow nation’ the modern South Africa has become, they are not going to be the ones to ruin it. Watching people swallow hard before saying and/or doing the right thing (or close to it) is extremely refreshing! Even the meathead gym teacher manages it! The microaggressions sure do sting though – Zenande and Luthando realise they have to regrade one teacher’s tests because he doesn’t bother to doublecheck the black kids’ work – but at least there’s a group of them figuring out how to navigate the unfriendly halls of power together.
And yet Ayanda has always gotten away with misbehaving because of her family’s money, while Luthando has always had to be a good girl. This scholarship is the only chance she will have to get a good education, and she is determined not to risk that. Ayanda’s ignorance about how not everyone enjoys protection and privilege has consequences, and Ms. Ilung does a great job of showing how Ayanda copes with being brought down to earth. Ms. Ndleleni is an utterly adorable heroine, with a knack for goofy slapstick, and gives Luthando the kind of energy that automatically has the audience on her side. The core ensemble of the six girls are all uniformly excellent with their very different energies. The final shot of the movie actually had the audience saying ‘awwww’ out loud. Basically Black Burns Fast reminds everyone of what it’s like to be seventeen, for good and for ill, regardless of your race and/or sexuality. Its tale of self-discovery, friendship and first love is just delightful, and its joyful energy deserves to be enjoyed all over the world.
Black Burns Fast recently played at BFI Flare.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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