I am not a WITCH
(Community Service)
The movie starts off with a little girl coming across a woman who was getting water from a watering hole. The woman sees the girl drops her container with water and proceeds to run away from the girl. The girl then takes the water container, fills it and then brings it to the woman’s house. Right after this, she takes the little girl to the village police officer who then proceeds to question the little girl on whether she is a witch or not, the whole village people were there to question this girl as well. They ask her if she is a witch and since she does not deny nor admit it, the police officer calls a government official who appears to be the one in charge of the countries ‘witches’. Following this, the government official comes to pick up the little girl and take her to a tribe of witches. Here they have witches on ribbons to ensure that they are not able to fly to kill other people. Here she is given a choice of whether she would be a witch or should cut her ribbon and become a goat. She is given the night to make her decision on this.
When they come to check on her the next morning they discover that she did not cut her string and in fact decided to remain a witch. After his, she began to work with the other witches who were much older than her in the fields. They did not like that she was a little girl who was accused of being a witch but nonetheless they could not do anything about it, but they could give her a name so they decided to name her Shula which means “uprooted.”
Following this Shula was then tattooed with a symbol that looks like pi on her forehead, and with this, the government official started to parade her around the country using her “powers” to identify thieves. He then takes her to his wife who was also a “witch.” Here she teaches Shula the importance of just listening to whatever they tell her to do because that will be the only way she can get out of whatever they will have her doing, and also that is a way that she can get out of that life, since that is the way the wife escaped the life of being a witch, which was through marriage to a non-witch. After meeting with her(wife) and getting to know her they stumble on an incident at the grocery store where she goes to buy gin and the people around her recognize that she is a witch and assaults her. This Shula immediately recognizes and acknowledges. After this is she begins to show signs that this is not the life that she wants, she expresses on a talk show that the government official made her go on. Here he talks about her “power” and how she was found as a witch. Here he also begins to advertise her “ magical eggs”, here she is pictured crying on the show after the host asks what if she is just a little girl and not really a witch, would not that be something bad that the government official is doing, that would be something that would be ruining her as a child. Though this he said that he is certain that she is a witch.
Towards the ending scenes, it is shown Shula being exploited in many ways by both the government official and even the fellow witches that she was at camp with. This all leading to the ending scene where she is shown at night waking up and taking her ribbon with her. Her she is presumed to have killed herself. The ending does not end there, there are boys who were shown throughout the money helping the government official here they are pictured moving Shula’s body into an empty open field. Before they put her body in the field, her body was put on a wagon and was carted there. One of the boys that were guiding the animals to the field was shown listening to music as they went to dump Shula’s body in the field. Here it shows the disrespect that they had for these “witches” as the time and how they also dumped her body I the middle of the field expresses this. At the end the older witches are shown grieving for Shula with her body on the truck, and at the final and last scene they are shown to have presumably cut themselves off from the ribbon, and have turned into goats, like how in the beginning stated that that if they do not want to be a witch anymore they can cut their ribbon, but will then be cursed as a goat for the rest of their life.
This film expressed the emphasis of the inability that Shula had to escape any kind of exploitation. Starting from the suppression of the village people forcing on her the idea of being a witch, to the government official convincing her that she might be one. This then pushing her to use her “powers” to help assist others. Of course, Shula is not a real witch because I personally do not think those type of things exists but in the movie, she is expressed as a mystery. I believe that for the movie itself, it never acknowledged the “witchcraft” in the movie. Another important issue that was addressed in the film was that of feminism. The film depicted the way that society treats women that are seen as rebellious towards societies usual norms. How society tends to put the blame on them for those problems. It also expressed the way that society treats men doing corrupt things in society. How the government official walked around in his expensive suits while society around is depleted and crumbling around.
The film explores the topic of freedom and how a child’s freedom is put at risk. The questioning of freedom is expressed when they force her into deciding to whether she wants to be a witch of would escape and turn into a goat. Not cutting the ribbon and staying as a witch expressed how Shula would feel safe and secure as opposed to cutting it where she could not feel this. Alas, Shula at the end expressed the last and only remaining free will that she had remaining and chose death at the end. Finally, one very important juxtaposition of the film would have to be the tribe or camp that she has been sent to. The camp for her represents the freedom that was taken away from her. The camp shows the preservation of her life keeping again her safety and securing it. The camp is then a representation of Shula’s prison but also her refuge from reality. In the end, Shula was uprooted wherever she was from and was dislocated from society and was left to be on her own. This uproot is important because they force people to choose between hard freedom or easier likelihood of bondage and security in life. The presence of Shula is very strongly felt by the other elders and is what even drives them to escape the life that they had been cursed to in the end. Shula ended up taking her fate in her hands and chose her freedom, this all expressed though Shula’s quest of finding herself, and what it is to be her.