TIFF Review: The Smell of Apples Is a Meticulous Look at the Shame of Apartheid

Propaganda isn’t just about cultivating an image for outsiders looking in. One might say it’s more crucial on the inside to ensure everyone is on the same page once life on the outside starts feeling like a better option. Because broken nations are built on broken families. Sure, it seems like everyone is happy and in agreement about the horrors they commit being for a greater good, but fear is a powerful drug. Fear protects us from the horrors at home.

Mark Behr’s novel The Smell of Apples gave clarity to many of the contradictions director John Trengove battled to reconcile since growing up as an Afrikaner at the tail-end of Apartheid in South Africa. He speaks about the push and pull of his Christian Nationalist education and his parents’ attempts to cut through the worst of its brainwashing. Trengove ultimately tried erasing that part of himself by “assimilating into English subcultures.” But the shame remained.

So think of this adaptation (alongside co-writer Christopher Ciancimino) as his way of making amends. It’s his first feature in Afrikaans and he wields its hate as a mirror for all countries embroiled in similarly oppressive and racist rhetoric. Yes, as bigotry courtesy of boys like Frikkie (Wian Carstens) casually lobbing slurs, but also as hypocrisy—like Leonor Erasmus (Maude Sandham) demanding an apology because that language isn’t allowed in her house.

Why is that hypocritical? Well, she does genuinely mean it. Leonor loves her maid Doreen (Celeste Matthews Wannenburgh) like a member of the family. Her children Marnus (Dawian van der Westhuizen) and Ilse (Karoline Watson) do too. Sure, Doreen’s grandson Neville (Courtlin Baron) isn’t allowed inside because he’s Black, but Leonor is still letting her care for him in her quarters. That’s something, right?

In her mind it is. And we can accept it in the context of a 1974 South African setting. But Trengove is slow-walking us to much deeper-set revelations than systemic injustice. He’s showing this family’s compassion, introducing how it is conditional, and then ripping the rug from under our feet. Because that fun dad (Hilton Pelser’s Johan) playing with his son and promising a great summer vacation isn’t just some random guy. He’s a decorated Afrikaner general.

Even then, though, we aren’t certain what to believe. Can a doting family man like Johan truly be a monster? The answer is two-fold. One: yes. Someone can love those they love with all their soul and still be a malignant cancer on the world at-large. Two: yes again. Someone can look like they love others with all their soul (and even believe it) while terrorizing them just the same. If you think seeing those military stripes are a shock, just wait.

You can tell the quality of Trengove and Ciancimino’s adaptation by how they meticulously uncover new details via seemingly innocuous interactions. A simple visit with Leonor’s sister for lunch carries a ton of context in two lines of dialogue: “Does Johan know you’re here?” and “Dad says you’re a communist.” It’s the first sign of implicit fear on behalf of the family and malice on behalf of the father. All in a couple of minutes.

Most of this information comes from the vantage of young Marnus, his youthful innocence granting the ability to spy around corners while his status as the general’s son allows crucial insight into Johan’s volatility. The boy, lionizing his father, adopts every belief as a religious text. Despite knowing what he does in that mold is wrong, he pushes through in the hope of making his hero proud.

Everything that happens onscreen in some way stems from an accusation Marnus makes after misplacing his late grandfather’s fishing rod. He’s not the true catalyst considering Johan’s job (which leads them to harboring a secret guest in Alejandro Goic’s enigmatic Chilean war veteran “Mr. Smith”) and the country’s history with segregation and lynching, but he does unwittingly bring everything this family was quick to ignore directly into their lap.

It’s easy to talk about “bad Blacks” as an abstract concept when you’re forced to do so to maintain a façade of humanity. It lets you see “good ones” like Doreen as evidence of an effective racial hierarchy rather than a byproduct of your violence within it. How do you square it when the most horrific act of brutality ever endured by someone you personally know is a direct result of your own ambivalence? You either watch your mask fall or hastily put it back on.

It’s an intense descent that won’t be easily shaken, both for its content and the unnerving “Leave It to Beaver” parting shot. I found myself wincing every step of the way, increasingly certain an explosion of rage was coming. Jealousy. Terror. Disgust. Shame. It all manifests in ways that finally force these characters to act because it finally exposes how they too are being repressed by their own regime.

You have the historical backdrop of Afrikaners clandestinely allying with other nations to ready for war against Black revolutionaries just as Ilse and Marnus are faced with the price of their victory first-hand. They can’t help but be caught in the middle emotionally. Reconciling their national anthem with what has been wrought in its name. Recognizing their hero is a domineering brute who revels in the violence. Rejecting this painful truth to stick their heads back in the sand.

With wonderful cinematography by Lennert Hillege and impeccable direction from Trengove, we become embedded into this contrast of summer optimism and the nightmare making it possible. I think van der Westhuizen is great as our conflicted lead, but Pelser and Sandham steal the show with their effortless shifting between fantasy and reality. Their silent faces during a climactic slide show say everything, yet the next day’s smiles still say more.

The Smell of Apples premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.