The film oscillated between rapid city shots and gradual rural scenes. This displays the rush of the city against the calm of the village. The city presents many dangers, violence and struggle. The life in the city is in constant motion, at work, in transportation, selling livestock in markets, moving in the buzz of capitalism and drudgery. The village is a community, occupied by cooperation and collectivism. The funerals of strangers are attended by people from far and help is always available to those that need it.

Back to the question: what is the essence of being Black? In six words: How To Ruin Christmas: The Wedding.

The film follows three women. Beauty Cuba (Faith Baloyi) is a police captain trying to clear her lover’s name from a crime she suspects he did not commit. Natalie Jonkers (Nicole Fortuin) reprises an uncertain newly-wed who runs away with her reckless friend, Poppie van Niekerk (Izel Bezuidenhout). Sometimes, the story is coherent. But often, it feels forcefully dramatic and uncomfortably disjointed.

“If they come to evict us again, we will die until the last person standing” proclaims a woman in Uganda. Her village has been raided before. Homes and crops were burned down. People were chased away with fire and ammunition. Women were physically and sexually assaulted.

Racial capitalism does not need all Black people to work. In fact, it requires that there always be a large supply of unemployed which pressures the people who are employed to accept low wages and poor working conditions else they will be replaced.

We can appreciate the power of a documentary to express the truth, but this film falls short in explaining the condition of Blackness during South Africa’s tumultuous transition to democracy. A focus on the factual accounts of violence, backed up by archival material and interviews from primary sources, is helpful. But overall, it fails in the same area as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

African art can be considered a deep search. The film introduces “immersive art” as a descriptive term but acknowledges that categorising African art is not always possible due to how linked our creations are to our identity and suffering.

Still, Africans who call out Beyoncé must also realize that while her narrative ties to the African race, it is not her duty to reflect geographical and contextual realities of Africa. Drawing from Nigerian inferences, music and film are often odd reenaction of Western experiences which are at odds with actual realities.