I Am Not a Witch (2017)
Review of I Am Not a Witch (2017), directed by Rungano Nyoni
In 2022, I’ve made a promise to myself. I want to watch more films by women, as well as movies that are from underrepresented voices.
I’ve been noticing the distinct lack of films from the African continent on my watch list, excluding the more dominant Muslim countries like Egypt and Morocco. One of my biggest dreams is to learn Swahili and to spend time traveling across central Africa, exploring all the food and cultures, the vibrancy of the countries that have faced so much oppression from colonialism. I started off my little movie journey with I Am Not a Witch.
I Am Not a Witch was streaming on Mubi at the time and was one of the first films I watched on the platform. I watched it on a dark night, and, as the story progressed, the night seemed to get even darker. This is a powerful film, especially if you have no idea about what’s going on in witch camps. There’s a lot to unpack about gender, class, and equality here, so let’s begin the review.
A young girl is deemed a witch and sent to a witch camp, sealing her fate.
Our main character in this film is a small, eight-year-old girl named Shula. She isn’t originally named Shula. She is unnamed at first, a threat that has suddenly appeared on the horizon and dubbed a witch. No one knows where she came from, who her parents are, and she refuses to speak properly. Surly and serious, the people immediately have decided that she must only be a witch.
The verdict comes swiftly, and she is sent away to a witch camp. Witch camps are actually a very big issue in Africa, especially when children are accused. It’s not something new; this is a historical issue that’s supposedly on the rise again. The witch camp only consists of women in the film.
They are juxtaposed to the more serious men who are the ones who keep them captive, laughing and jolly despite their situation. These women are quite literally tied up and have a white fabric attached to them. Our main character, Shula, is depicted as the only child in this camp.
There’s also a juxtaposition on the age of the witches and of Shula’s age; everyone in the camp but her are much older, much larger than her. She’s just so small compared to all of these adults, which makes the situation so much sadder considering how little space she takes up on the screen.
Even the clothes that are put on her are too big for her small frame, as they drape across her in a baggy, unflattering manner.
White ribbons, as mentioned earlier, also keep all of the women trapped in the situation. They are not allowed to run.
The only time we see someone try to escape the situation is when Shula tries to run, right before she is bound and initiated into the camp. She is caught by a man, one who looks wealthy with power, and, like a rabbit, she is tied up and forced to stay here in this place.
Shula is then used as a prop of sorts. They make up a story about how she can predict the rain or events, and so, instead of being something just hated by society, she becomes something that is exploited by the everyday people.
Because she is dubbed the bottom of the barrel socially, she is no longer able to be something that chooses her own destiny. She ends up choosing to be a goat and dies, but it is unknown how that actually happens.
It’s a beautiful film, one that’s hard to look away from. The actress playing Shula is mesmerizing, truly playing into the role of this mysterious child with no background. How did she end up here?
What’s happened to this girl before the events of the movie? We mourn the life she could’ve lived, but, just as she appeared at the beginning of the film, she may have never had a life to begin with to live. She may have been poor or destitute, an orphan.
Overall Thoughts
It’s a haunting movie, one that pulls into the question of how we treat women and children from a certain social class.
While we don’t know much about our main character’s past, we can see how she’s treated in the present, and how she is still a child, despite the horrors inflicted upon her and her serious attitude towards life.
She was only a child, one who was thrown to the wolves because she didn’t fit in with the societal expectations, something which was out of her control. With the music and slightly surrealist choices, I Am Not a Witch is an impressive debut that was unexpectedly good.
