“What makes Wesens all the more remarkable is the brave, unexpected, life-giving philosophy behind the film.

A life-giving philosophy that has for so long been so far removed from traditional Afrikaans films as a political conscience from certain decisions made in government circles. America has "perfected" the so-called space fiction film, but here we are not dealing with a cheap, fast-paced imitation of glamorous Americanisms to run with to the box office, here the opposite happens.

We are transported back to the Georges Méliès era, that clever pioneering director from France whose short film A Trip to the Moon (1902) (Le Voyage dans la lune) boasts probably one of the most iconic images ever from films: a fed-up moon whose right eye was injured by a clumsy spacecraft, which landed in his pupil. 

There were, of course, previous films on the same subject by Méliès, one as early as 1898, but the 1902 version remained stuck in the collective subconscious. The moon is made of cheese and there is a man in the moon!

This was followed by hundreds of others, including the cheap B-movies of the fifties where cruel, abominable creatures from outer space terrorized earthlings. Think of Orson Welles' radio play The War of the Worlds, also the 1953 version and horrendous 2019 version. Also consider the thousands of other imitations such as The Day of the Triffids, also called Invasion of the Triffids in 1963, The Day the Earth Stood still in 1951, and countless followers. In 95% of the cases, the aliens were hostile to us, until Steven Spielberg changed the picture a bit with E.T. The Extra Terrestrial in 1982 and 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, not to mention Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey (1967).

Derick Muller's stun gun film Wesens – certainly Afrikaans' first space fiction film – borrows a fraction from Kubrick, but then only the philosophy behind the master, and also from Arthur C. Clarke's statement, which one does not dare to reveal here because it may giveaway the climax of the film.

Suffice to say, Muller takes us back to the Carfo days (1950s and 1960s) when Afrikaans films were made on a budget smaller than the tip of a shoelace, actors often played for free, and which all had a spiritual message conveyed.

Wesens message is not necessarily purely "spiritual" or religious, but it still makes the viewer think about where man comes from, the universe, the Deity, why we cling to this rock which drifts through space with only gravity holding it all together, and why we are actually here. "What is the meaning of life here on earth?" is certainly one of the most pressing questions that no philosophy, religion or genius astronomer has ever been able to answer satisfactorily. 

Wesens does not try to explain this either, but rather contemplates the origin of the first living organism on this planet and its survival, whether transmitted by Khoi legends, or the age-old research of philosophers and scientists. For such a concept one would need billions of Rands to imagine, but Muller approaches it with a brave audacity and a stubborn determination, linked to heaps of talent.

He circumvents the problem of a huge budget by using The Blair Witch Project's technique, or actually borrowing from it in part. Because if the viewer were to use his or her common sense, the events and filming by two cameras would not really make sense.

In any case, film roles, shot in the early sixties, are discovered in the Karoo. On the film reels, a few traditional Afrikaans men, at least not all stereotypes, drive around the Karoo after a farmer (a nice big bellied Albert Maritz as a typical Karoo farmer with all his prejudices) made a strange discovery. But among the guys is an above-average intelligent and sensitive cinematographer, excellently played by Pietie Beyers, who films the ride through the Karoo to its end point and watches it in silence and with a silent respect.

It should be added here that Beyers nowadays excels as one of South Africa's top actors who gives a new dimension to rare characters. Not only will he soon play the role of a being from another planet in a radio drama, his other work also testifies to deep reflection, a thorough analysis of the hidden motives and eccentric, often depressing agendas. He can also give ordinary people (as in Meisies Wat Fluit, 2020) a new, even calmer dimension. He looks at the soul of his characters and conveys them in tempered play.

In Wesens, his character's brain works overtime. He, as a creature from a barren, dead landscape looks into another dimension. He hears sounds and sees things that others are deaf and blind to. And he makes contact with another world that in this film is perceived through a membrane. The film is the umbilical cord to which we are connected by a unique vision.

Muller films his story with a primitive, old-fashioned camera, subsequently some of the images appear to be out of focus, he doesn't use the full width of the silver screen and do not always focus on the subject of interest. What lurks in this sometimes windswept, obscure cinematography is the vision of a director who warns: "we are not alone, and nothing is to be taken for granted." Furthermore, he does not present us with the cliché alien who wants to take over the earth, but rather gives an insight into our creation. Because our perception of who we really are and where we come from is so overwhelming, that we can never form a proper understanding of it, nor focus on it. It is too overwhelming.

And for that, Muller must be praised. He sometimes uses the so-called Dutch tilt technique where the camera is rotated skew, or where the focal point disappears from the screen and is later rediscovered. Nowhere is there a shot where the characters fit neatly, as in a "normal" movie, into the frame. Even less does he utilise lighting to benefit or beautify the people. In fact, there is no actual lighting in the traditional sense of the word, so "lazy" or traditional viewers, will be jerked from their comfort zone, and will quite understandably not find appeal in the film. Furthermore, coloring grading is used to temper and dim the bright, hell-hard Karoo sun.

So many European directors and cinematographers that end up in South Africa are blinded by our bright sunlight. They do not know what to do with it or how to apply it or even visually "tame" it for sensitive European eyes. They get overwhelmed by it. But not here. This young, exciting filmmaker's images contain virtually no colour and reflects the dead aridity of the Karoo under which life lurks and thrives. But a dead aridity that is so severe that one almost suffocates in the dust and feels the heat on your scalp. You actually get sunstroke from the movie. But all this contributes to the whole of the picture of how the first living organism on earth learned to survive and was overwhelmed by the hostile, but also deadly beauty, of this incomprehensible planet.

There is a stimulating, exciting thought process behind Muller's film. He takes you to a prenatal stage where organisms fight to distinguish between life and death and eventually choose life, often with treacherous consequences. 

Wesens is like nothing you have ever seen in Afrikaans. It forces you out of your comfortable popcorn zone and gives new courage to people who think the Afrikaans film is dying out. It proves that with the minimum budget, but the maximum talent and courage, you can produce a challenging, wilful, audacious product that takes the Afrikaans film to a new level. And for that, Derick Muller and his wife, Karin, must be praised.

Submit yourself to this rare, eccentric and almost indescribable experience, but be tough, be open-minded, forget everything you think you know about movies and creation. Throw everything you expect from a movie out the car window. Escape the grasp of how America taught you movies should look and surrender to one of the most unique and unexpected experiences of the year.

Please go without preconceived ideas and with a mind that is willing to internalise, think, wonder and then appreciate it.

It will be interesting to see what Muller (hopefully again on a small budget) will come up with next and if he will be treated to bigger budgets, promises of dictatorial fame and possible television series.”

— Review by Leon van Nierop, LitNet, 29 October 2020

Link to review: https://www.litnet.co.za/filmresensie-wesens/

"A brave film that makes the viewer think ontologically about his or her place in contemporary South Africa.”

— Extract from the review by Francois Bekker, FAK, 4 November 2020

Link to the full review: http://www.fak.org.za/2020/11/04/moontlike-lewe-in-die-buitenste-ruim/