Set in the 1950’s in the Republic of South Africa, where apartheid had just begun, the film tells the story of Amina, who runs a restaurant with a black partner. A free-spirit, Amina transgresses traditions of the Indian community and the regulations of segregation as well. When Miriam, a devoted housewife and mother of two kids, meets Amina, she becomes strongly attracted to her and starts questioning the norms that restrict her. Using conventions of narrative and mise-en-scene from 1950’s Hollywood melodrama, the film builds a lesbian melodrama in defiance of heteronormativity. In a society characterized by women’s repression, the two women’s secret relationship opens a space of freedom where prejudice and suppression cannot reside anymore. Presenting issues of racism, women’s repression and matters of sexuality through images of the stunning South African landscape and jazzy tunes, the film speaks in an electrifying voice. This filmic adaptation of the filmmaker’s own novel shows a fine example of lesbian melodrama through twists of genre conventions. (HONG So-in)