I Am Not a Witch

When Officer Josephine (Nellie Munamonga) calls Mr. Banda (Henry B.J. Phiri) in an early scene of Rungano Nyoni’s “I Am Not A Witch,” she interrupts him taking a bath. The government official’s phone plays a goofy-sounding classical music ringtone, which we will hear several more times at equally inopportune moments during the film. Officer Josephine explains to Mr. Banda that someone at her police station has been accused of being a witch. Nyoni shoots Banda’s lackadaisical reaction entirely from behind him as he lounges in the tub; it sounds as if this is a regular occurrence because Banda’s responses completely lack surprise. That is, until Officer Josephine tells him that the accused refuses to confirm or deny the witchcraft charge.

At no point does the arrested young girl, Shula (Maggie Mulubwa) utter the film’s title, nor is the viewer ever fully sure if her unwillingness to answer constitutes an admission. What we do know is that there are “witches” in this Zambian village and that, like in Salem, their convictions stem more from the fear, jealousy, or wrath of their accusers than from any evidence of black magic. For example, one of the villagers tells Officer Josephine that Shula chopped one of his arms off with an ax, flailing both of his arms wildly as he tells the story. The original complainant screams witchcraft because she dropped her bucket of water when Shula suddenly startled her.

Guilt or innocence doesn’t matter, as Banda is happy to have another witch to add to his coven. He’s even happier when he discovers his latest addition is about eight or nine and willing to go without protest. “New witch in town. Fresh and young!” sings Banda. His witches, many of whom are older women, serve as an uneasy combination of chain gang, field hands and even tourist attractions. The film’s opening scene is a rather savage mockery of the Western world’s ignorance of different cultures. Two visiting Brits take pictures of the women, each of whom is tethered to an enormous spool of ribbon that constricts the distance they may travel. Their tour guide explains that the ribbon keeps them from flying away. “They can even fly as far as the U.K. where they can kill you!” he tells them. The picture-takers happily snap away, not noticing that what they’re surveying looks at best like a prison and at worst, like something far more sinister and deadly.

“I Am Not A Witch” works in this vein of satire until its haunting ending, and Nyoni does an excellent job of keeping an absurd tone while losing none of the gravity of the situation. She accomplishes this by never reducing her subjects’ humanity. There really are witch camps with people who, like Nyori’s women, have been railroaded into incarceration. The director’s imagined additions to this reality, such as the ribbons, are all elements that patriarchal society would consider blatantly feminine symbols. The radical act of cutting the ribbon, a choice given to Shula on the first day of her capture, carries a stigma that shrouds the fear of female agency within the wolf’s clothing of a cultural fear. “Do you want to be a witch or a goat?” Shula is asked. The goat would be “killed and eaten within a day,” her elders tell her. But a witch would survive, which would carry far less shame and a false sense of power.