"Oh Schucks, I'm Gatvol!" combines Leon Schuster's greatest strengths - that of a great storyteller and his special talent for candid camera. Few South African filmmakers are as in touch with South Africa's collective funny bone as what Leon Schuster is. With Gatvol, he has created a thoroughly contemporary comedy that probes the surface of our angst-ridden South African society, exposing our fears as well as the irritations that fill column inches in daily newspapers and keep radio talk shows alive.

"What I am trying to say with Gatvol, very simplistically, is that South Africa is where our roots are and that I don't believe that anyone who was born in South Africa could possible be truly happy outside of the country. Our country is too unique," Says Schuster. "I think the main message is that we should not ignore crime because obviously we have to fight that, but lets not run away from or turn our backs on the country."

It is Schuster's love of and unwavering faith in the country that is highlighted in Gatvol. "Jan Scholtz always says that if you can make people laugh and at the same time get a lump in their throat, then you have done something right and I think that I have done that in this film," says Schuster. "I was pleased that, while this film is slapstick and sometimes over the top, by the time we get to the final scene, we have succeeded in getting the emotion. This is the first time that I have tried to get any poignancy into my films."

The secret that underpins all of Leon's work is his close observation of how ordinary people see the world around them. "In writing about us, Leon shines a light onto our society revealing our family and friends, familiar situations and, perhaps most importantly, the shared values that we have," says co-director, Willie Esterhuizen. "Leon knows his fellow countrymen and knows what things give us goose bumps."

In bringing Gatvol to screen, Leon Schuster teamed up with Willie Esterhuizen, a successful writer, comedian and director who helmed the very successful "Orkney Snork Nie" series. "I brought Willie in because I needed someone to guide my performance when I was in front of the camera," says Schuster. "We directed the movie together with Willie being very much the practical director and I the creative director. We are different in terms of our comedy styles because whereas I love physical comedy, Willie loves the verbal comedy, but this worked in our favour on this project."

"Gatvol is Leon's vision and I just interpret his script," says Esterhuizen who admits that it was challenging to capture on film the vision that Leon had in his head. "I think the biggest challenge was to interpret correctly what Leon had in mind when he wrote it. It is always very difficult to see into someone else's mind because even though Leon describes his vision very well on the page, he still has the picture in his mind and I have to try to give him that picture," says Esterhuizen. The second challenge was to keep this complex story, with all its intrigues, simple enough for the audience to follow. "What I can assure you is that it is an extremely funny film because Leon and I decided, at the outset, that we were going to put a little jewel in every set-up so that when the movie was finished we would have a whole jewellery store. It is a technique that Jamie Uys used to employ."

Technically Gatvol proved to be far more involved than what Esterhuizen had initially imagined. "This is the most difficult and complex project I have ever worked on," muses Esterhuizen. "It is full of gags, full of SFX, not to mention the aeroplane sequence which was highly complex to shoot because we had to shoot it so that the viewer could see the intrigues and stories as they unfold. There are about two or three stories going on all the time excluding the terrorist scenario and they all have to be funny."

THE CHARACTERS AND THE CASTING
Gatvol boasts one or the largest, and most colourful, cast of characters yet seen in a Schuster film. "During the writing process, I instinctively form an idea of the characters," says Schuster. "Every character, apart from Ali and Samoosa who stick out as buffoons, could have been on that plane - the overweight beer-swilling Boer, Rosie, the Model C black family - they are true blues. I wanted to stick pretty close to reality because if you can marry the funny side of life with being true to life you will succeed. That's why the camera gags in the movie, for the most part, are very close to the bone."

Gatvol marks the reunion of Schuster and Alfred Ntombela, one of South Africa's favourite screen partnerships. "I think that Alfred is one of the most under rated actors in South Africa. When we worked together the first time, on "Sweet and Short," I was astounded at how natural he came across," recalls Schuster. Over he years since "Sweet and Short," Schuster and Ntombela have become firm friends, both on and off screen and this is perhaps why they gel on screen. "The relationship that I have written into the film is in fact the real life relationship that we have. We play off one another really well and I don't believe there is anyone else in South Africa that I could play off as spontaneously as I do off Alfred."

Schuster and Esterhuizen have cast a number of the country's best-loved actors and personalities. "I really wanted Shaleen Surtie-Richards for the Rosie character, but she is involved in another project and I turned to Ilse Oppelt who blew me away with her audition. Instinctively, I knew that Ilse was perfect for the role. For the part of the Boer, I had a much bigger guy in mind, but Willie Esterhuizen was with us from the beginning and seemed perfect for the role because Willie is big and has great comic timing."

"I know that if you use a very well known actors they bring their own baggage along and we want that baggage," says Esterhuizen. "We have cast people like Faye Peters from "Generations" because we want her audience. Robbie from "Gauteng-aleng-aleng" because he brings his own audience. Then there are new faces like Ilse Oppelt from "Fishy Fashions" who also brings her audience along, but her audience has never seen her on the big screen before. They are all very talented comedy actors."

As with many of his previous films, Schuster once again sets his sights on a couple of well-known public figures. "I like to play with fire, it's just in my nature and I don't know that I could have done this movie without a few controversial issues," muses Schuster who has added Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Robert Mugabe to his list of targets.

While the sequences are funny, they fly in the face of political correctness. "I am not politically correct simply because you must have an element of risk when you are writing comedy in South Africa," says Schuster. "I think that what people like about my films is that they are risky. Here, the risk of ripping off Manto is high, if she had to be a minister in the old regime, I would have gone to jail for it, but we live in a democracy now and you have the right to rip off whoever you want to. Besides, I like Manto because she is controversial and there is a great love/hate relationship between her and the people."

Does Schuster see any similarities between Manto and members of the old regime? "I think she is very similar because she is a figure of importance and, like the old guard, is not scared to let you know it. However, I think she likes being controversial and therefore is one of the colourful South Africans. She is always in the papers, is not run-of-the-mill and speaks her mind."

Given the widespread and vastly opposing views of Robert Mugabe and the fate of Zimbabwe, Mugabe seems a very risky target. "Mugabe has been labelled as a monster and is perhaps the most controversial leader in Africa today," says Schuster. But despite world opinion and what some would call the dire situation in Zimbabwe, Mugabe can be conceived of as a comic character. I suspect that, since my films are also released in Zimbabwe, there will be a backlash, but so be it."

While Schuster may take risks in his portrayal of public figures, this is always done in a decidedly tongue in cheek fashion. "As far as lampooning prominent figures is concerned, there is never a hint of maliciousness in Leon's work, if anything, he adds to the person's stature," says Esterhuizen. "Everyone loves it when Leon does Naas Botha. Naas is a national treasure in terms of our past rugby glory and if you are being joked about in a Schuster movie then, in a sense, you know that you have made it. It is akin to having a cartoon drawn of yourself and is quite endearing."

Gatvol also introduces the ever-hip and very smooth Naastin Powers. "The Naastin Powers skit is a rip-off of Austin Powers and nobody understood why I wanted this in the movie," recalls Schuster. "I wrote this after seeing how positively kids responded to Austin Powers and I felt that Gatvol lacked a hook for the kids. The potential movie-going audience in South Africa is so small that I cannot afford to eliminate anyone. I have to have stuff built into the story that will appeal across a large spectrum. When I conceived the idea, I thought that it was clever and I still think that it is a great hook for the 10 -21 age group."

A RETURN TO CANDID CAMERA
It has been some time since Schuster last tackled the South African public one-on-one with his candid camera gags and, given that he is no longer as young and resilient as he was before, this proved far more difficult than he imagined. ""Its dangerous at my age. When I did Panic Mechanic, I didn't have half the fears that I have now. I am 53 and I have my kids to look after, I am a responsible father so I don't want to get shot."

Another complication was that because Schuster's gags are so recognisable, it has become increasingly difficult to catch people. "I am just too recognisable and that is a big problem," says Schuster. "On the day we were shooting the license gag in Venters Dorp and I was disguised as a black cop, the first five guys recognised me immediately, possibly because of previous gags that they had seen. So I had to start playing around with my disguise, I put in other teeth to make my jaw jut out more, added sunglasses and finally, by the end of the day, the disguise seemed to be working. I actually said to producer Andre Scholtz that we should forget the gag because it just didn't look as though we were going to catch anyone."

For Willie Esterhuizen, the candid camera sequences were a baptism of fire. "This was the most difficult for me because this is the first time that I have done candid camera," says Esterhuizen. "I am used to a very controlled script and discipline on the actors and here I was faced with a member of the public who says and does what he likes. You cannot be there to direct them, you just have to be shut up and let them give you stuff so that was very difficult for me and I now know why so very few people can do it successfully, it is because it is so difficult. You may shoot 15 different members of the public and only get one that works or shoot all day and get nothing that works."

Schuster feels that what makes his work so rewarding is that South Africans may really get upset when he pulls pranks on them, but they laugh with you and at themselves once the truth has been revealed to them.

"We are so used to violence that when we look at it from a comedy point of view, we enjoy the release. What would I do if a traffic cop was going to cut up my license - would I plead, would I bribe him? The idea is to make light of such things," says Schuster.

One candid gag that is certain to find its mark with audiences is he sequence where the filmmakers take revenge on mini bus taxi drivers. In setting up this gag, they advertised for taxi drivers wanting to do an 'advanced driving course.' Predictably the response was overwhelming. "I mean, what taxi driver would not be willing to do an advanced driving course, anything to make them real cowboys," comments Esterhuizen. "We then enlisted the help of Reghard Roets who is an expert at driving badly. With the hapless drivers installed in the bus, we took them on a joyride of note - knocking down toilets, narrowly missing drums and trees and generally scaring the hell out of them."

Shooting this sequence was a logistical nightmare for Roets. "Leon is a perfectionist when it comes to such things and I really don't believe that you could have shot that sequence on film because you would have had to install five highly visible cameras inside the Combi. We had the advantage of being able to use lipstick cameras, which are very easy to conceal. While the quality, of course, is not as good as that of a normal camera, you get all the terrified expressions."

For the filmmakers the joy of this sequence was that the recruited drivers had no idea that this was a gag and that they were being filmed. "After being utterly terrorized for minutes on end, the very shaky recruits wanted to murder Reghard for driving so badly. I think that this is a great gag because we have taken revenge on behalf of motorists everywhere and it is really funny," says Esterhuizen. "We have just turned the tables on those who make us Gatvol and given them some of their own medicine."

THE SHOOTING STYLE
Schuster and Esterhuizen turned to award winning cinematographer, Koos Roets, to shoot Gatvol.Gatvol is a great departure from the film and television dramas for which Roets is renowned, but he was more than up to the challenge of working on a slapstick comedy. "Because it is a comedy, I tried to keep it as colourful, bright and cheerful as possible, it is not a deep story with a whole lot of hidden meanings, but rather like an American comedy. That is also Leon's style - life in its bigger form," says Roets.

Gatvol is the first Schuster film that has been shot on tape and, while this was primarily for financial considerations, Roets believes that it opens up a whole new world for filmmakers in this country because of the affordability of shooting on tape. He is also impressed by the quality of image that the new generation cameras display. "I was very much against it initially, until I saw the tests and I was knocked out because the quality is so good," recalls Roets. "You cannot compare the new cameras with the old ones, they are like chalk and cheese. I mean, people who have seen the trailer at the cinemas cannot believe that it was shot on tape. Also for this genre of story it is so much better to shoot on tape because when you are shooting candid camera sequences, you shoot thousands of feet of stock, most of which you end up throwing away."