If the movie is, among other things, an ode on South Africa’s Musangwe boxing competition, it’s at best a slippery and tamed one, in which the history and culture of Musangwe is unexplored.
By Seyi Lasisi
Showmax has for almost a decade of its existence been a digital archive for African films and TV series. With its well–defined interest in serving African and international cinephiles, the on-demand platform has carefully commissioned and acquired African films and TV series that are beautifully steeped in African cultural worldview. Cheta M, Crime and Justice, Wura, Diiche, and the recently produced Musangwe, are exemplary films and TV series that embrace, in distinct degree of depth and tone, the cultural nuances of Africa. The films and TV series are, at their best, cinematic, representing the cultural, political, and history of Africa.
Lufuno Nekhabambe’s directorial feature film, Musangwe like its South African predecessor on Showmax, Hard To Get, Abomkhulu, Adulting, envelopes itself around a socio-cultural and historical practice in the country: the Musangwe boxing ceremony and competition. Musangwe (traditional bare knuckle boxing), a century-long cultural practice, is in ancient times, an outdoor, grotesque and confidence-building boxing activity used to handpick and prepare young men to defend their community, and by extension the towering responsibilities of life. As an initiation activity, with elements of fanfare, the preceding ceremony which announces the boxing activity provides a breeding ground for building inter-communal relationships amongst the various competing villages. It’s this sense of history and culture that, in minimal measure, Musangwe tends to romance with.
Nekhabambe’s film, written by Siphosethu Tshapu, who also doubles as the script’s editor, paces around the story of Takalani (Wiseman Zitha), a budding and hitherto unsuccessful boxer. With a defined motive in securing an identity for himself as a boxing champion, Takalani (who also goes by TK), is struggling with striding to the top. Internally, he is concerned with distancing himself from his father, Lerumo’s (Jackson Molefe) decade-long identity as a failure. Contending this internal conflict, Florence (Phophi Mudau), his mother, constantly reprimands him about boxing, a reaction which hinges on a traumatic past she is trying to avoid.
Upon losing multiple matches and waning popularity entombing his career, Lerumo, the husband we never meet, took to physically abusing his wife and son. In a twist of events, TK’s grandmother has a medical condition that requires his physical presence in Venda, the grandmother’s village. In this ancestral village, not only does TK experience a life-altering experience by challenging and winning Matome (Tiisetso Thoka) the village boxing champion, but he also finds love (in the character of Lufuno played by Mulisa Mudau), and strengthens his relationship with his mother.
Dependent on excessive telling, the film distances viewers from connecting with the interior conflict of TK and his mother. For a film whose plot progression and characters’ development, to a vast degree, rely on the abuse history in the family, it’s almost witless not to have embraced the “show” technique. Not only does it ground the character’s constant tête-à-tête about an abusive husband, but it also gives the audience visual evidence and reference points in believing the abuse story. A fine balance and blending of telling and showing would have strengthened the emotional landscape of the film. Additionally, it would have, not to dismiss the possibility of TK’s father’s excesses, made the excessive talk about abuse and its overarching effect on TK and the mother more plausible.
Viewers who have seen Michael B. Jordan’s Creed III and intimately remember plot details from the film will notice a sense of kinship with Nekhabambe’s film. TK’s journey, though culturally dissimilar to that of Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), the lead action in the boxing-themed film, occasionally shares some recognisable bond. To mention the most glaring, the lead actors’ internal conflict and the motive to have an identity away from their fathers’ legacy. Sampling narrative ideas from other films isn’t an activity of an unoriginal creative. In different guises, creatives, willfully and subconsciously, shape-shift ideas. In Musangwe, the script fondles traits from Creed III and, quite remarkably, steeps them into African reality. The scant English language words and the film’s cultural setting of Musangwe also set it apart from Jordan’s.
Tshapu, the scriptwriter, might have extensive knowledge of the Musangwe competition, but moments in the film where this knowledge is extended to the audience are sparse. The script isn’t gracious in immersing the audience in the cultural and historical importance of the Musangwe competition. If the movie is, among other things, an ode on South Africa’s Musangwe boxing competition, it’s at best a slippery and tamed one, in which the history and culture of Musangwe is unexplored.
For a film on boxing, there are also too few boxing scenes. The cinematography, handled by Dan Lesiba Teffo and editing by the duo: Ntshepe Ifarah Nkosi and Sphiwe Kgarye, in the few boxing scenes which exist in the film, slumps in capturing the acrobatic movement of the boxers. While the story is constantly tilting towards boredom, the cinematography and editing could have provided a visual feast for audiences.
Those of us who retain a stubborn fondness for watching and writing about African films and TV series on streaming platforms will have to admit how traumatic some of these titles have been in recent times. But, as a patriotic cinephile, we will keep shouting and passively hoping that things will change.
Rating: 2.5/5
(Musangwe currently streaming on Showmax)
Seyi Lasisi is a Nigerian creative with an obsessive interest in Nigerian and African films as an art form. His film criticism aspires to engage the subtle and obvious politics, sentiments, and opinions of the filmmaker to see how they align with reality. He tweets @SeyiVortex. Email: seyi.lasisi@afrocritik.com.