Architect Robert Silke of Louis Karol has made a no-budget mockumentary about the Cape Town building he calls home.
VISI spoke to him about The Satyr of Springbok Heights.
The building Springbok Heights is a character in the film – how would you describe its personality?
It is indeed the main character, inasmuch as the haunted house is the main character of many horror films.
Springbok Heights is an anthropomorphic piece of architecture that’s curvaceous and flesh-coloured, her balconies resembling an expanded rib-cage connected to a central spine.
She's been a rather tantalising, capricious mistress to her long-term inmates, who have expended their careers, resources and even relationships in order to spend their lives with her.
What’s the building’s real name?
The character of Springbok Heights is played by a building in the Cape Town inner city called Holyrood and the film is dedicated to its architect, CM Sherlock.
I've lived in Holyrood for about ten years and have connected two of its 30m2 bachelor's flats – an example of the extraordinary lengths that a person will go to in order to stay!
Are the characters in the film purely fictitious?
Holyrood has been home to right-wing politicians, architects (and their old mothers), convicted shoplifters, lapsed nuns, unwanted adult children, rent boys and lawyers who would later be murdered.
So, Holyrood and Springbok Heights have a lot in common but no single 'real or historic' character is represented in the film, although some Holyrood residents (past and present) might well think they recognise vignettes of themselves.
Why the mockumentary approach?
Plainly put, the real residents of Holyrood are simply not as interesting as the fictional inmates of Springbok Heights. Holyrood has never had a transsexual or even satyr (not known to me anyway), though it has had its share of people who've gotten themselves stuck there, including myself, I fear.
But Springbok Heights goes beyond fiction into the realms of fantasy. It's a managed delusion where you're compelled to imagine something that's patently more interesting (and honest, in a sense) than what really exists.
What does the Satyr symbolise?
Halfbok the Satyr only ever appears on VHS surveillance footage and is most likely a product of the collective psychotic delusions of the residents.
Living for too long in their bachelor studios has compelled them to dream up a character who goes through their refuse, spies on them through their peep-holes and lusts after them, because we all need to believe that someone cares, or at least wants us.
Why did you want to make this film?
Colin Braye (our associate producer) introduced me to cinematographer and tech-savante Aaron Scheiner in May 2007. We then workshopped the concept for a no-budget mockumentary project that would utilise new HD technology to produce what was initially conceptualised as an aesthetic project.
Nicholas Spagnoletti (who played Nathan Golding) co-wrote parts of the script with me and we hoped to demonstrate that Cape Town is a real urban micropolis with a depth, complexity, grittiness and soul that goes beyond the picture-postcard image of sand and sea from Blaauwbergstrand.