[star rating=”5″] MLUNGU WAM (GOOD MADAM). Directed by Jenna Cato Bass, starring Chumisa Cosa, Nosipho Mtebe, Kamvalethu Jonas Raziya. Writers: Babalwa Baartman, Jenna Cato Bass, Chumisa Cosa. At The Castle of Good Hope, The Labia.
MEGAN CHORITZ reviews
What a trippy, special, and quite outrageous evening. One I won’t forget, because of the setting, the people, the place, and the film. The premier of Mlungu Wam was an outdoors movie experience at the Castle of Good Hope using the Cinewav app to listen to the sound on our phones.
We gathered in this space, and it was magical as the sun went down and we took up places on benches, bean bags, camping chairs, accessed the app, and counted down to watch this brilliant new local movie. I was blown away, literally by the wind, and by the film.
Mlungu Wam is a dark thriller/horror set in the creepiest house in Constantia. It tells the story of Tsidi, a young woman who, with her young daughter Winnie, is forced to go and live with her biological mother Mavis, a maid to a very ill white woman, who is bedridden. The set-up is one we know all too well, but the twists! The execution! The performances! The soundtrack! The setting! Even the dark special effects make this movie truly original, totally absorbing, and creepy as hell.
Chumisa Cosa, as Tsidi, is magnificent. The contrast between modern woman and the desperate trapped person, both by her own family when her grandmother passes away, and then in this white woman’s house where her mother is the maid, is extraordinary. Every moment is so deeply felt, it is visceral for the spectator. But she is also incredibly well supported by the rest of the cast, especially Nosipho Mtebe as her mother, Mavis, who is so utterly familiar to me in her devotion and subservience and her absolute need to not upset the apple cart.
Kamvalethu Raziya plays Winnie with such charm and natural realness I was totally convinced by her (and I usually hate child actors), and every other actor was brilliant.
The creepy house with its weird masks, old kitchen tiles with idyllic pictures on them, a dark wooden staircase up to the madam’s room, and its overgrown garden and suburban, unused pool, are literally ideal.
The soundtrack is genius. Haunting. Scary. Emotional.
And the story is so good. It is a riff on the traditional madam maid saga of South Africa, but it has twists. Really good twists. Some are subtle and some are in your face, but the movie is political, feminist, historical and personal, without ever hitting you over the head with message. It does kick you in the gut though. It is mostly in isiXhosa (how brilliant is that?) with some English, and it is also beautiful to watch. Amazing direction brings everything together. I left feeling thrilled by it.
What: Mlungu Wam Good Madam
Where: The Labia, Castle of Good Hope
WS
