Writers: James C. Williamson, J. Hannah Massyn and Sandulela Asanda
Director: Meekaaeel Adam
This South African postcolonial horror is too drawn out to really provoke a reaction. Heavy on atmosphere, but light on plot, the second half of The Trek, taking place sometime during the mid-1800s, seems mostly composed of slow-mo shots, eking out what little story there is. Rob van Vuuren’s over-the-top performance as an English colonialist doesn’t help matters.
Dutch-Afrikaans settler Karel, along with his heavily pregnant wife Jakoba and young daughter Karolina, is crossing the Kalahari Desert to reach, presumably, South Africa to establish a farm. Accompanying the family is Englishman Blake, who’s confusingly part of the land settlement, land that, of course, has been stolen.
Their trek comes to a halt when, after a rifle accidentally fires, their two horses bolt. With miles left to travel and with their supplies of water diminishing, they are stuck. Help arrives the next morning when a bushman appears with one of the horses. He offers to lead the family to water and then to the border. Within the film, this new arrival is given no name, but the credits indicate his name is Atshumao. However, none of the white people asks for his name. They don’t trust him and are suspicious of his kindness. Only Karolina, with the innocence of a child, takes time to talk to him, offering him her meal of horse flesh.
He tells her of a myth in which The Rain and The Land are quarrelling twins. And he tells her he’s become separated from his own twin. This ‘lost’ twin may be guiding him, and it’s possibly the voice we hear often in the background as the camera spans the arid landscape or the ghostly figure that goads Blake as the journey recommences. By the end of the film, it’s conceivable that Atshumao’s tale may be a metaphor for the divide between the white man and the Black man.
This wise bushman (Maurice Carpede) is very different from the insufferable Englishman. South African comedian van Vuuren gurns and wheels around as if he’s the villain in a Victorian melodrama. Blake is so absurd and overplayed by van Vuuren that it undercuts the very real racist ideologies behind British Imperialism. Morné Visser and Trix Vivier have a better time of it as Karel and Jakoba, who both harbour a dark secret, demonstrating that colonialism was a Europe-wide ambition, not just a British one. Leah Lindeque as Karolina is the most impressive, however.
But even her compelling performance can’t hide the fact that there’s just not enough narrative to fill the 105-minute running time. With flashbacks rubbing against dream-like sequences, the last 30 minutes run the risk of being slightly pretentious and repetitive. The Trek is cinematographer Meekaaeel Adam’s first directorial feature, and while the Kalahari certainly looks good, his film fails to catch fire.
The Trek is screening at the Raindance Film Festival 2026 from 17-26 June.
