In John Trengove’s “The Smell of Apples,” every visual detail is meticulously reconstructed to evoke mid-1970s white South Africa with eerie precision. From the gawkishly short school uniforms and patterned kitchen tiles to the distinctive orange-and-brown daisy prints found on household textiles, production designer Birrie Le Roux has created a pristine, one-way time capsule. Cinematographer Lennert Hillege enhances this aesthetic with soft, summer-burnt lighting, yet the film eschews nostalgia entirely. Instead, it serves as a piercing examination of affluent Afrikaner life and the egregious inequalities that sustained it.
Told through the perspective of an naive 11-year-old boy, the narrative offers no halo of innocence. Rather, it chronicles his growing awareness of the vast horrors he does not comprehend. Based on Mark Behr’s acclaimed 1993 novel, the film joins other recent literary adaptations such as “Moffie” and “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight” in exploring the experiences of white individuals living within an apartheid bubble on the verge of collapse. This perspective remains discomfiting and unfashionable; black characters are viewed only peripherally, their suffering never openly articulated, highlighting the deliberate compartmentalization that upheld white supremacy.
The project marks a homecoming for Trengove, the Johannesburg-born director whose feature debut, the Sundance prizewinner “The Wound,” explored toxic masculinity and repressed sexuality within Xhosa communities. His subsequent American release, “Manodrome,” faced mixed reception. “The Smell of Apples” returns to these thematic preoccupations, though the queer subtext is rendered more subtly here than in the source material.
Trengove and co-writer Christopher Ciancimino have produced a minimalist adaptation that strips away Behr’s structural foreshadowing, including flash-forwards to the protagonist’s adult military service in the South African Border War. Despite these omissions, the film conveys a palpable sense of the darkness approaching the nation. The story centers on Marnus Erasmus, played by Dawian van der Westhuizen, the only son of Johan, portrayed by Hilton Pelser. Johan is the country’s youngest army general, and Marnus feels the weight of macho Afrikaner ideology, suspecting he may disappoint his father due to his timid and fair nature.
Johan often masks his anxious scrutiny behind bluff good humor, but when his worries surface, they turn violent. He favors Marnus’ strapping best friend, Frikkie, treating him like the stronger son Marnus wishes he could be. The tension is compounded by the arrival of Mr. Smith, an enigmatic Chilean army general recently involved in the Pinochet coup, with whom Johan holds covert consultations about matters beyond a child’s understanding.
Meanwhile, domestic unrest simmers within the family. Leonor, played by Maude Sandham, maintains the appearance of the perfect homemaker while being unnerved by her liberal sister Karla, who is banned from the family home. Their teenage daughter Ilse, played by Karoline Watson, begins to recognize her father’s entitlement and the injustices of the apartheid government. The family’s black live-in maid, Doreen, portrayed by Celeste Matthews Wannenburgh, keeps the household running but is taken for granted by Marnus. Her presence is further complicated when her orphaned grandson Neville arrives, only to be unwelcome in the servants’ quarters and met with hostility by the master of the house.
Over a tight five-day timeline leading up to the December holidays, these tensions collide, unmasking the ugly face of authority in South Africa. The film culminates in a queasy sequence where benign family photographs are interspersed with evidence of Johan’s war crimes, testing the composure of those involved. While the ending diverges from the novel’s shocking transgression, leaving the audience to anticipate a breaking point, the film’s power lies in its depiction of a family held together by fear and privilege. Trengove’s impeccably paced direction suggests that this walled-off idyll is bristling against its own construction, inevitably destined for destruction.
Trengove’s return to South Africa after his American stint feels purposeful here. The subtle queer undertones seem much better integrated than in his previous work.
I was surprised by the deliberate absence of black characters’ inner lives. It’s a bold choice that forces the audience to sit uncomfortably with that specific white gaze.
The visual attention to detail sounds stunning, but I need to know: does the film successfully balance its aesthetic beauty with the heavy moral weight of its subject?