Film Review: ‘Elelwani’ — The clash between culture and capitalism
Ntshavbheni wa Luruli’s Elelwani (2012), based on the novel of the same title by Titus Ntsiene Maumela starring Florence Masebe and Shonisani “Ashifashabba” Muleya, is a coming of age film that challenges and further subverts established cultural norms and (Western) cinematic devices, including but not limited to narrative and aesthetic forms.
Elelwani, a young woman from a culturally-inclined VhaVenda family on the Venda mountain tops/slopes, is sent to study at a university abroad by her father and whilst away, a marriage to Ratshihule the King is prearranged without her knowledge, as Tshivenda traditional culture has in the past (perhaps also in the present?) allowed. Upon her returning home from studying abroad, we see that she has not returned alone or rather as the self she was when she had left — but with an education or as an educated individual symbolized by the graduation gown she gives to her father — and a stranger who we soon come to know is her lover.
This, together with social norms, values, habits and practices she has picked up at university, causes conflict between her and her father, who thus comes to also embody the VhaVenda tradition and culture. Elelwane’s personal journey and development becomes a force that threatens to break tradition, however her father does not at any point regret sending her to school. The narrative thus unfolds as a dialectic between the modern and the traditional, in efforts of coming to a synthesis between Elelwani’s old and new worlds.
While the film is not easily categorizable when thinking of established film genres, I contend that, it creates its own genre — that of non-genre. Film critic Pier Paolo Frassinelli notes this in Intersecting temporalities: cultural (un)translatability and African Film aesthetics: Ntshavheni wa Luruli’s Elelwani when he declares that the film “[Elelwani] is certainly no Hollywood or genre film, nor an example of explicitly political third cinema or an ethnographic film either.” This suggests that while the filmmaker may be influenced by the wave of African third cinema, as well as ethnicity, tradition and culture in narrative and plot, he goes beyond these by making use of techniques that subvert or undermine these genre-forms.
This is evident in how the filmmaker attempts to keep to an authentic and organic narrative, doing so by casting TshiVenda speaking people as actors and extras, with minimal if any make-up and/or wardrobe touch ups, as well as filming on location — at the actual Venda place. This inclusion of the original place/space and its traditional practices seeks to draw in the local (read African) viewer/audience, be they muVenda or otherwise.
This is because in many African contexts, there are overarching similarities between customs and beliefs despite the divergent language practices, most notably the arrangement of a marriage, at the discretion of the father, for his daughter to a family that has shown interest in his daughter but is also upstanding and respected in the community. The amaXhosa people of the Eastern Cape and AmaZulu of KwaZulu Natal are ardent custodians of this cultural practice to this day, much to the conflict with individual freedoms that are a prerequisite of liberal democratic life.
Thinking around the representation of Black fictional communities, the often-used trope of (extreme) poverty and/or squalor when depicting Black and particularly rural communities is not a salient feature in this film, as the VhaVenda people are depicted as a people who do not place much value on things material, even though in the popular imagination of South African socio-political life, it could be regarded/thought of as rural and/or underdeveloped. A minor but significant example of this is the car that Elelwani is driven back home in by her lover, a modest Citi Golf introduced to the markets in 2006, rather than any of its other luxurious German counterparts of the time.
It is the tension between Elelwani’s traditional beliefs and practices as opposed to those she exudes upon her return that become the hook that keeps the audience drawn into the film. Her personal journey can be viewed as a microcosm of contemporary South African youth’s lives, where many coming from impoverished backgrounds are awarded scholarships to pursue tertiary education abroad, only to come back different people, alienated from the rest of their people and their culture. Noting this, M.J Mafela in Cultural Oppression and The Liberation of Youth in Some Novels of T. N Maumela writes that “according to TshiVenda tradition and custom, a child learns morals and values from its parents. A muVenda child was expected to take all instructions from its parents” (Mafela, 1999: 301).
In the end, by confronting rather than fleeing from her parents and ultimately her culture, Elelwani finds common ground, a resolution of the conflict that is the driving motif of the film. This too is true for her modern ways, which she accepts to incorporate into her cultural forms of being and seeing. This is done through her acceptance of taking the king’s hand in marriage, thus ascending to the influential position of the Queen of the VhaVenda people, yet at the very same time is a scholar/academic who will use the knowledge gained outside of her Venda homestead in ways that privilege the community over the individual, facilitated by her new role and status as Her Royal Highness of the VhaVenda people.
