SPOEK MATHAMBO - CONTROL
- Directed by Pieter Hugo -
Pieter Hugo, the director of Control by Spoek Mathambo is a photographer who travels extensively to capture marginalized, peculiar and rare characters of South Africa. As a white photographer in a colored country, he observes that he fails to “fit into the social topography of my country and that certainly fuelled why I became a photographer.” Being one of my favorite photographers with a provocative eye and bold images, I had to blog about his video.
This notion of social topography extensively becomes apparent in the music video for Control, which to me metaphorically depicts the religious and racial colonization of South Africa by white European settlers. The song title itself, “Control” signifies a power struggle for dominance. The first few frames depict a caterpillar and a graveyard. However, the calm setting of the dead is aroused as Spoek Mathambo rattles history awake with his megaphone. I particularly noticed the role of costume and framing here, Spoek symbolizing the “white man” in his white suit with a Christian cross on it. Initially, the singer is framed in front of a set of black Jewish graves, subtly suggesting the theme of prosecution by utilizing the example of another suppressed party. Later, he appears in front of the statue of an angel at the graveyard.
As Spoek’s character awakens the past with his preaching, the African youth loses sense of its identity. They fall into a trance-like state as a religious book snaps closed. The children’s heads are dipped into water representing the act of brainwashing in the literal sense; white dust is symbolically blown into their faces, where it sticks stubbornly, imposing on their clear sight. Furthermore, in their trance they begin mindlessly “vomiting” the white liquid from their mouths as Spoek continues to feed them his religious preaching through the megaphone.
The grotesque image, while being dynamic and cinematic, seemed to indicate the vulgar perversion of the act to us. An army of the “children of God” is created. We see images of children marching as they are being controlled by Spoek’s words, contrasted by close-ups of their faces in a trance-like state. Thus, order and madness are depicted simultaneously. While control is lost over freedom by one party, another power gains regulation. The editing of the video underlines the themes portrayed in the frames. The staccato shots complement the dynamic, repetitive, almost ritually rhythmical music and represent the loss of control. We are constantly exposed to new images and no longer clearly follow the order of events.
However, control is ultimately regained by the African youth towards the end of the video. A close-up of a child shaking off white dust is portrayed in slow motion. Black liquid is poured over Spoek by the children, depicting the metaphorical African domination and the re-gaining of power. The children dance in front of three burning Christian crosses, while Spoek fights the bars of smoke, which encase him like prison bars as he sprays a fire extinguisher into the light to try to dim the burning fire of the crosses.
Ultimately, light versus dark, as depicted in the choice to film the video in black and white. The children violently attack Spoek and knock him to the ground. Thus, power once again lies in the hands of the suppressed culture as they aggressively rebel against the control issued upon them.
