"The Forgotten Kingdom" is the story of Atang, a young urban resident of Johannesburg, who must travel back to his homeland of Lesotho, a tiny land-locked kingdom completely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa, to honor his father's final request to be buried. Atang has not spoken to his father for four years before his death and is not happy to revisit his family past or to leave the excitement of Jo-burg for provincial Lesotho. However, he quickly meets lovely young school teacher Dineo who recognizes him from their childhood days and begins to develop feelings for her. Fate strands Atang in Lesotho after a violent mugging and when he finds that Dineo's father has moved her and her HIV-positive sister to the deeper countryside, he teams up with a local orphan and heads out on a quest through the mountains and plains of Lesotho to reconnect with her.
This is a truly beautiful film, filled with breath-taking vistas and the rich texture of a land that is both familiar and unfamiliar to our protagonist. It's also a film with a real generosity of spirit - Atang and Dineo's relationship is charming and engaging, whether they are playfully flirting or emotionally confronting each other. The real highlight of "The Forgotten Kingdom," though, is the interplay between Atang and the unnamed orphan, played with mixture of mischievousness, vulnerability and wisdom beyond his years by Lebohang Ntsane. Director Andrew Mudge does a great job of telling his story in a culture that is vastly different from anywhere in the Western world, but in a way that is always relatable and compelling.
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