Variations on a Theme

Ouma Hettie is an elderly goat herder in South Africa’s Kamiesberge. Drawn into a scam offering overdue reparations for her father’s unpaid wartime service, her rituals are unsettled and her independence imperilled in this lyrical portrait.

Like so many descendants of South Africa’s Second World War veterans, Ouma Hettie has waited in vain for the compensation due to her father for his loyal service to the state. From the despair felt by veterans’ families, a new grift has grown, feeding on their hope for long-promised restitution. Hettie, too, has been caught up in it. Her eighty or so years spent in the shadows of the Kamiesberge, herding goats and living in close rhythm with the land, have taught her much about resilience.

In many ways, Variations on a Theme feels deeply Afrikaans in its lyricism. It captures the atmosphere of small-town life set against the veld, attentive to the plants, animals and landscapes that seem to regard humans as passing visitors, echoing the sensibility of Eugène Marais. Hettie is the grandmother of co-director Jason Jacobs, accustomed to the presence of a camera as she moves through her routines and rituals.

At its core, Variations on a Theme is a portrait observed with gentleness and insight, simultaneously observing daily life in the village of Kharkams while keeping an eye on the unseen and the metaphysical in the same spirit that Ouma Hettie herself wanders between the everyday world and the realm of the departed and the lost.

– Vanja Kaludjercic

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