I Am Not A Witch (2017)
Shula is a little girl who one day has the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time--a woman in the village falls and looks up to see Shula watching her. From there it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to Shula being accused of witchcraft, found "guilty" through the results of a dubious witch doctor ceremony, and shipped off to a labor camp full of convicted "witches". Told that she must either agree that she is a witch or be turned into a goat, Shula declares herself a witch. Her face is scarred with three slashes, and she is put to work.
The "witches", conveniently, are all older women. And rather than become a burden on their families, they are taken away to perform unpaid manual labor. Shula is the only child in the camp (the other witches react with disgust on her arrival because they disapprove of someone so young being sent there), and the government official in charge of the camp soon realizes that Shula may be the key to more successful endeavors.
The film is taking on a lot: child labor, superstition, slavery, poverty tourism, and more. And yet despite its plate being so full, the film manages to make several potent points with just a handful of scenes. For example, we are several times shown that the women are part of a tourist trip. From behind a flimsy metal railing, international travelers take photos of the witches. When one tourist discovers Shula in a garish container, she seems genuinely concerned at Shula's clear depression and alarmed on learning that Shula has been in there for two days. "I know what will make you feel better," the tourist says. "Let's take a picture together and I'll send it to you!". Thus all the help that Shula gets is an unwanted selfie.
In another excellent sequence, the government official takes Shula on to a TV program to promote both her powers of prediction (that she can summon rain), and also to advertise a new line of eggs with Shula's name on them. When a caller to the TV show berates him for profiting off of a child and questions why Shula isn't in school, the government official blusters that the criticism is a "misuse of free speech".
Aside from the writing, the film also contains some very potent imagery, most specifically the way that the witches are controlled. Each woman, and Shula, has a harness on her back attached to a long white ribbon that is fed from a spool. These ribbons obviously stand for the degree of freedom (or lack thereof) of the women. Shula is told several times that she should be grateful because the ribbon is so long. In the entire 90 minute runtime of the film I never got tired of the staging of the ribbons or the spools. Such an elegant, powerful representation of the limits that are put on certain people.
On the one hand, the film goes scene after scene making different points about Shula's predicament, and yet to me it never felt superficial. Each sequence felt like its own story, and I felt that it added up to more than the sum of its parts. Writing this review I keep thinking of different scenes I want to describe and discuss and why they struck me. I only meant to watch a bit of the film (because I have work early tomorrow) but I couldn't stop watching.
The only thing that I felt negative about was an abrupt plot element in the final act. But this film had me captivated from the first frame to the last.
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