Proteus (2003 Film)

Proteus is a film by Canadian director John Greyson. Although the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2003, it did not have a general theatrical release until 2005.

Set in 18th-century South Africa, the film dramatizes the true story of Claas Blank (Rouxnet Brown) and Rijkhaart Jacobsz (Neil Sandilands), two prisoners on Robben Island who were executed for sodomy in 1735. Their relationship also had a racial component, as Jacobsz was a white Dutchman, while Blank was a black Khoi. The film also stars Shaun Smyth as Virgil Niven, a Scottish botanist who befriends Blank for his knowledge of South African flora, but may in fact have his own sexual interest in Blank.

The film also attempts to explore unanswered questions, such as why prison officials tolerated the relationship for a full decade before Blank and Jacobsz were executed. (In an interview packaged with the DVD release, John Greyson notes the real Blank and Jacobsz began their relationship when they were both teenagers - Blank having been imprisoned on Robben Island at age 16 - and were actually known to be a couple for twenty years before they were charged with sodomy and executed, when they were both nearly 40.) Intentional anachronisms - such as transistor radios, electric typewriters and jeeps - are also used in the film to illustrate Greyson's larger theme that homophobia and racism of the type that led to Blank's and Jacobsz' executions are still very much present in today's world. These twentieth-century objects, including modern (c. 1964) dress on many occasions, are invariably presented in juxtaposition with eighteenth-century items. The eighteenth-century prison commandant, for example, is replaced by a former subordinate, who wears a twentieth-century guard's uniform and is often accompanied by a fierce-looking Alsatian on a short lead.

A extract from the speech Nelson Mandela made at his sentencing hearing in 1964, before he was imprisoned on Robben Island, is displayed at the end of the film.