Gavin Hood's THE STOREKEEPER is a mini-masterpiece of filmmaking, a film short with no dialogue, yet with very moving characters, whose facial expressions and body language make the short work. A storekeeper in South Africa goes to extreme lengths to keep from being repeatedly burglarized. We know exactly what'll happen as the story progresses, yet we're powerless to stop it.
6 Reviews
a simple, powerful short with an anti-violence message
shaun j21 November 1999
The Storekeeper is a highly underrated short from South Africa that I was lucky enough to catch at the NZ film festival this year. Superbly and simply directed without dialogue, it is a powerful and intense anti-violence statement and a minor masterpiece. Catch it if you can.
Hilarious
Rurik_Snorri10 September 2006
This is one of the funniest film school shorts I have ever seen in my life and I jest not. The level of pretentiounsness mixed with uber p.c. god-knows-what, the misdirected "anti-violence" message is just so completely out of left field that you cannot help but laugh. How those 4 year olds could have pried open the metal bars that a 20 year old criminal needed a whole toolbox to do is apparently not part of the issue. I also like the "arms contractor", a Dutchman natch but certainly a metaphor for (white) South African mercenaries along with his servile sellout native sidekick.
Please, don't let the audience think for a second that the main character may have indeed been protecting his life and property which was being burgled every night. A plea for gun control? Or a clever way to be clever and get your career rolling? You be the judge.
SA has the highest crime and murder rate in the world. Can't we all get along? Har har har
Please, don't let the audience think for a second that the main character may have indeed been protecting his life and property which was being burgled every night. A plea for gun control? Or a clever way to be clever and get your career rolling? You be the judge.
SA has the highest crime and murder rate in the world. Can't we all get along? Har har har
Indeed, a brilliant short film.
krowchylde28 July 2002
The Storekeeper, set in South Africa, is a brilliant short film depicting the lengths one storekeeper had to go to in order to keep his business safe from thieves. However, there are tragic consequences to his methods. I truly believe Gavin Hood did an astonishing job with this film.
a few thoughts..
mstern1818 September 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Strange that when I saw this I did not really think about the gun control message. What I did see this film as was the simple story of one man doing what he can to live. It seems that he lives something of a lonely life and the viewer is meant to sympathize with him a great deal. Stylistically, an interesting film. Almost minimalist in a way, because of the lack of dialogue. I thought that this style was a little forced in one or two places, but otherwise it worked very well. I like the fact that whatever language you may speak you can watch the film the same way. And another thing: the scene in which the gun goes off reminded me a lot of the "baptism" scene in the Godfather. Both have a ceremony going on in a church, with music, contrasted with cutaways to violence happening elsewhere. Strange coincidence(?)...
Simplistic short film that still manages to be engaging despite the rather basic message being ultimately delivered in a rather obvious way
bob the moo10 March 2007
An elderly man owns a small convenience store in rural South Africa. He has not much stock and doesn't take much money but what he has is his and he tries to protect it the best he can. However one robbery continually tries to steal from him no matter what steps he takes to protect against it.
On the DVD for Tsotsi, this short film has a very clear message that greeting aggression with more aggression is not going to solve anything in even the short or even long term. It is a simple message and indeed it is delivered within quite a simple short film. This will perhaps annoy some viewers and it is a weakness that the message is so obviously played out. I suppose this was unavoidable given the way the story goes but in credit to Hood the subtly he lacks here as writer he has as director. Without any dialogue the film uses the actors' faces and bodies really well to convey emotion and it is expertly shot throughout, having a good sense of place to it that doesn't do down the area or gloss it up like some films will do with "wilderness" type settings.
Overall then a simplistic short film but it still manages to be engaging despite the rather basic message being ultimately delivered in a rather obvious way. However Hood makes up for his writing with his direction, which is roundly good.
On the DVD for Tsotsi, this short film has a very clear message that greeting aggression with more aggression is not going to solve anything in even the short or even long term. It is a simple message and indeed it is delivered within quite a simple short film. This will perhaps annoy some viewers and it is a weakness that the message is so obviously played out. I suppose this was unavoidable given the way the story goes but in credit to Hood the subtly he lacks here as writer he has as director. Without any dialogue the film uses the actors' faces and bodies really well to convey emotion and it is expertly shot throughout, having a good sense of place to it that doesn't do down the area or gloss it up like some films will do with "wilderness" type settings.
Overall then a simplistic short film but it still manages to be engaging despite the rather basic message being ultimately delivered in a rather obvious way. However Hood makes up for his writing with his direction, which is roundly good.
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