 
he 1870's. South Africa. Life is normal at the farm on the slopes
of a Karoo Kopje. Fat Tant Sannie (Karin van der Laag) looks
after her charges, the sweet Em (Anneke Weidemann) and the independent
Lyndall (Kasha Kropinski), with a strict Biblical hand - it
was Em's father's dying wish. Gentle Otto (Armin Mueller-Stahl),
the farm manager, runs the farm and cares for Waldo, his son.
Waldo (Luke Gallant) is bright, and busy building a model of
a sheep-shearing machine that he hopes will make them all rich.
Things change when the sinister, eccentric Bonaparte Blenkins
(Richard E. Grant) with bulbous nose and chimney pot hat arrives.
Their childhood is disrupted by the bombastic Irishman who
claims blood ties with Wellington and Queen Victoria and so
gains uncanny influence over the girls' gross stupid stepmother,
Tant Sannie.
As the story of Lyndall, Em and Waldo unfolds to its touching
end, we learn not merely of a backwater in colonial history,
but of the whole human condition. |
live
Schreiner's intense story of three children living in the African
veldt has often been compared to Emily Brontë's Wuthering
Heights. Wildly controversial at publication (1883) because
of its feminist sentiments, the story has remained a touching
and often wickedly funny portrayal of life on a late Victorian
farm in South Africa.