Along with Katrina and the later Jannie Totsiens, this is another classic South African film from what can be rightly termed the golden age of South Africa cinema, a sadly short-lived period in which filmmakers, especially Rautenbach and Nofal, found the balls to stand up against possible censorship and banishment because of the films they made. Allegedly an exposé of the Afrikaner Broederbond, this was both South Africa's first political thriller and Jans Rautenbach's first official and credited tour of duty behind the camera after he and Emil Nofal had produced King Hendrik and Wild Season together.
In the turbulent 1960's, an Afrikaner nationalist organization, the Stigting Adriaan Delport, is preparing to willingly admit a new candidate to its' ranks but proceeds to cold-bloodedly tear the candidate's life apart when one of their number, a writer in the mould of the controversial South African author Etienne Leroux, discovers skeletons rattling in the candidate's closet, amongst which one finds that the candidate was in a reformatory and that he is engaged to an Englishwoman: neither of these facts sit well with the board, whose members begin to question themselves as one startling revelation after another occur.
This faceless, shadowy organization ~ supposedly there to assist the Afrikaner in their daily lives ~ takes its' meetings in a council hall surrounded by the busts and portraits of past South African Prime Ministers, with Jan Smuts being the glaring exception to the rule. Because all decisions taken by the board must be unanimous, the board members' own skeletons and problems that have been carefully hidden away, are brought to light by the writer, whose personal demons are also later and shockingly revealed.
An excellent film in all respects, with the only surprising fact arising from it is that Die Kandidaat was never banned, although a 52 second cut was made to a sequence where the nationhood of so called "coloured" people is brought into question. As with the later film Katrina, the film's targets ~ in this case, specifically the Broederbond and the government ~ failed to recognize the fact that they were in fact being targeted and instead of vilifying the film, applauded it.
The production design, music and cinematography are also standouts here. and the film's daring examination of the political situation in SA, circa 1968 was explosive indeed, so much so in fact that the then all powerful and very much feared Publications Control Board ordered that a print of the film be seized from the production offices to check if the cuts ordered by it to be made to the film were effected.
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