FILM REVIEW: Unomalanga and the Witch

A young married couple move from Free State, Vrede, South Africa into a quiet dreary suburb that looks just like the right place to live in.

The husband, Sibusiso is a teacher and has been employed in the local high school, something the young wife is proud and thankful about since the husband has been without a job for a while.

She is a housewife, a home keeper whose husband prefers that she keeps the home fire burning until his return.

WITCH NEXT DOOR

The story picks right from the first moment Nomalanga has seen her husband off to work around their gate. As he goes she is about to return to the house when something moves her and she stops.

She feels someone has been watching them. She turns and peers at the house directly opposite their home where only a dusty road separates them.

The door is hurriedly closed, setting us up with lots of questions.

Who lives there? Her attempt to ask Sister Reba, a neighbour and seemingly a fellow church member attracts a soft warning to leave that house alone, where a lone woman who had buried her husband lives.

Nomalanga bakes some scones and armed with her Bible she sets off to the house with a mysterious widow who had lost her husband. Considering the warning from Sister Reba, softly offered but terse in its weight, you would have expected her to leave that house alone.

But Nomalanga comes out as an assertive, direct and honest woman who will stop at nothing to get her questions answered or mind made up on her own terms.

She arrives at the house and almost turns back, perhaps wondering what she is doing there.

The neighbour, Salome, startles her from behind and the confrontation is dramatic, tense and superbly protracted right away. 

SARDONIC GAME

Salome is a serial smoker and asks her what she wants. Nomalanga introduces herself and not even the mocking, sarcastic words of her neighbour, including her somewhat shaken self, stops her from stating her business and why she is there.

Nomalanga appears naïve but comes out as a straight shooter.

She keeps her eyes on Salome even with her initial hostility at the beginning. She informs Salome about hearing that she lost her husband and she was there to pass their condolences.

The host welcomes her in the house unceremoniously together with her plate full of scones.

As a tidy woman she is uncomfortable in the unkempt home but she perseveres.

She reads from the book of the Revelation and Salome's cigarette lighting antics and mocking behaviour shortens the little condolence service in the name of the lord considerably.

As they talk and with the events that follow Nomalanga asserts her love for her husband and Sibusiso's love for her. He only has an eye for her and they care about one another deeply.

Her host is not very friendly and reminds her whom she should be taking care of rather than loiter in people's homes reading scripture.

She attempts to leave with the scones, believing Salome's attitude towards her means she is not interested in her baked delights.

To her confusion Salome asks her to leave them behind.

REBA’S PREMONITION

As she leaves clutching her holy book she is accosted by Sister Reba, who wants to know what she told her.

Nomalanga insists she only went to pass her condolences and pray with her. Sister Reba informs her that the man who died had a “real wife” and the way Salome found herself in that man's house is nothing short of witch craft.

In fact, Sister Reba calls her a witch, qualifying it by telling her that the real wife went mad immediately Salome came into the picture. In her soothing demeanour and soft voice, Sister Reba warns Nomalanga again about taking her prayers there again. She would soon find out for herself, she presages.

Obviously Salome's exclusion by neighbours and believers has made her develop distaste for them. She dislikes what she calls the Christians’ attempt to save something all the time.  In their heated conversation Salome finds her hair unkempt and offers her hair-do services.

She is ready to do her hair for another plate of scones.

SIMMERING ATTRACTION

As Salome's hands work on Nomalanga's hair a lascivious feeling unlike anything she has ever felt is apparently simmering.

A bond begins to develop between them. Their friendship develops to a point where one Sunday Salome is ready to join them to church.

The self-righteous Sibusiso curtly tells Nomalanga there is no way they would walk with her to touch.

Salome is vividly wounded as she returns home and Nomalanga walks with her husband to church ignoring her as if she does not know her.

FIT OF LASCIVIOUSNESS

Later the same day as they return from church the couple arrives to find Salome's compound full of household items strewn all over. Apparently her late husband's children want her out of the premises.

Salome does not understand why Nomalanga is so friendly to her unlike everyone else who keeps throwing her around since she was a little girl.

Perhaps a fulfilment of Sister Reba's admonitions about the dark wind around Salome, Nomalanga is moved by a fit of carnality that leaves everyone confused, including both of them.

uNomalanga And The Witchis only 27 minutes, an aesthetically absorbing riveting drama with a talented cast and brilliant direction by Palesa Nomanzi  Shongwe.

The inconclusive nature of the South African film and Nomalanga’s confusion about what has happened seems to suggest a strong human attraction that can poison anyone even a staunch Bible wielder, akin to the strong dark forces of the jealous sea god who kills any man who attempts to get close to Ihuoma in Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine.

Was Nomalanga under a dark spell woven by Salome? Was Salome just an innocent woman like Ihuoma whom gods had woven a dark magnetic draw around? 

uNomalanga And The Witchcast includes Mmabatho Monshto as Nomalanga, Ferry Jele as Salome, Yonda Thomas as Sibusiso and Charmaine Mtinta as Reba.