Shooting Bokkie and the ethics of faking it

Abstract

Shooting Bokkie presents itself as a documentary about a juvenile assassin or bokkie as he executes a series of victims in the ganglands outside Cape Town, South Africa. Director Rob de Mezieres uses numerous signifiers of documentary authenticity, such as shaky handheld observational documentary style footage, archival material and interviews, to convince the viewer that the content is factual. He frames the film with footage from unstaged briefing sessions with the crew during which the ethical implications of filming assassinations is the topic of heated and clearly genuine discussions. Further, De Mezieres refuses to disclose whether the footage is real or not, and some viewers are not sure whether or not they have just witnessed actual killings. The film confronts filmmakers and viewers alike with their complicity (as voyeurs or passive bystanders) in the killings. This paper argues that Shooting Bokkie uses the mock-documentary format in order to call into question the ethics of documentary filmmakers and audiences alike. The author raises concerns about the acceptability of allowing people to believe they have watched others die, but concludes that this is necessary if the film is to succeed in exposing the grander and more pernicious fakery that plagues the documentary project as a whole.