By Madalitso Musa:
The unforeseen start to the shocking end of the tragic 1 hour 15 minutes movie is a scene which happens in the 18th minute 29 seconds of the movie “School Days.”
In the scene, Richard, famously known as Richie; a handsome, serial womaniser, bumps into Leticia, a newcomer. Richie starts playing his wooing game on Leticia who bluntly tells him off. Richard notices a glistening bracelet on Leticia’s arm and asks her to let him try it on. Leticia unsuspectingly gives the bracelet to Richie, but after putting it on, Richie tells Leticia that the bracelet fits him well and he will not return it to her and tells susceptible Leticia that if she wants the bracelet back, she must follow him. Leticia does not and leaves the bracelet to him grudgingly.
Wasted youth live the
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school days: The plot
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The movie starts with Mphatso Machira-real name Amos Filisa-a genius and well-mannered teen, who is to start Form 1 at a boarding school, bidding farewell to his visually impaired mother and young brother.
Mphatso’s homestead is a vintage portrait of poverty, a doleful semblance of a house with one room within it, a piteous reed mat on the floor and a wooden stool and a half bag of maize occupy their space at the corner. All this is because Mphatso’s father died while Mphatso was young. For Mphatso to go to school, it has to take church members to contribute money for him which means he has to report late for school.
On the first day of school and while going to the dormitory, Mphatso comes face to face with unforgiving raw brutality when the most notorious Form 4 bully and kingpin of the campus Philemon, known as Phwedo (Tupe Mtaya) in the gangster circles, harasses him and his crippled friend on their way to the dormitory. This is to be the beginning of a long dress rehearsal of life in hell.
For newcomers like Mphatso, each passing day on campus is an angst-ridden encounter with repulsive callousness by senior students. Winning sports games is a preserve for senior students, good food is never for junior students as the “big boys and girls” snatched the food.
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As the days pass Mphatso’s cupid arrow hits Leticia, the girl who is fancied by Richie the playboy. However, Leticia shows all signs that she fancies Mphatso other than Richie the skirt chaser. Because Leticia has none of Richie, he develops some overt aversion towards Mphatso, one day when the boys are washing their clothes, Richie sits next to Mphatso who was washing too, albeit, with razor thin piece of soap. Phwedo arrives and, in a show of seniority and to embarrass Richie, he berates him in the presence of the Form 1 laughing at him that he is washing with the juniors just because Richie wants to be snatching soap from Form1. Rich cowers and mumbled sheepishly in a scene of a bully being bullied. Phwedo then gives some clothes to Mphatso to wash for him. Mphatso complains that he does not have enough soap for Phwedo’s blanket but Phwedo takes none of it. Moments later, Leticia, appears and when Richie tries to talk to her, she sternly shoos him away and goes towards Mphatso’ and she gives him a pack of washing powder because in their previous conversation, Mphatso had told her that he had little soap. When Leticia notices the mound of clothes that awaited Mphatso’s hands, Leticia is concerned and lovingly offers to take some of the clothes to wash at her hostel. Richie’s bitterness and jealousy of Mphatso swells.
Days later, an official of an organisation which organised an essay writing competition comes to Mphatso’s school to award a winner of the essay writing competition. It emerges that it was Mphatso who is the winner and receives two t-shirts and K4,000 in cash. Mphatso becomes and instant hero, yet in danger and a target of the ruthless gang of campus bullies who, immediately start hounding him with the tenacity of starved wolves.
After Mphatso had received the money, he takes it and gives it to the head master to keep for him and also to send it to his mother in the village.
While Mphatso is with his girl friend Leticia, in the corridor, Phwedo, the leader of the gang waylays him and snatches one of the two T-shirts Mphatso had received. Then to appear nice, Phwedo asks Mphatso why he went to receive his prize in wetted pair of trousers, Mphatso reveals that Zaki, another ruthless bully poured water in his pants. That is when Phwedo promises to protect him from the other bullies.
But it is at a cost. Phwedo, demands that Mphatso surrenders half of the prize money to him which Mphatso insists he has none.
The following day at the school assembly, the head master brings sad news that Mphatso has been found dead on a path while he was on his way to school from a shebeen where he had gone smoking and drinking, habits Mphatso never indulged in all his life until that fateful night when he was forced by the gang of bullies.
Mphatso’s death is a mystery and brings panic at the school. The gang of bullies’ shudders and holds an impromptu meeting led by Phwedo. The bullies main worry is that because of their brutal reputation, they will be suspected to have killed Mphatso. Because Phwedo had seen Mphatso in the head master’s vehicle the previous evening, he is convinced that it was the headmaster who is responsible for Mphatso’s death so that he takes the money Mphatso had him asked to keep for him. The students, in uncontrolled rage, vandalise the head master’s office. Later, police round up all the suspects and start interrogating them where startling revelations were made.
Gang of bullies, Mphatso, shebeen,
Leticia’s bracelet, love rivalry, death!
The gang of bullies drools for Mphatso’s prize money unceasingly. They plan to intoxicate Mphatso so they goad him to a shebeen where he was forced to smoke marijuana (chamba) and drink local brewed beer. They keep on hounding him to pay the bill but Mphatso has no money on him. They then tell him to go back to the hostel alone because he, without money, is a liability. A highly inebriated Mphatso starts off in the dark and along the way, he meets a fellow student who he asks to be escorted to the hostel. But the fiendish student hits Mphatso who hits his head on a stone. Silence. Death.
It is Ras Moses, who sales marijuana and beer, who reveals that on the night of his death, Mphatso was seen at the shebeen in the company of Phwedo, Zaki, Chucksy, Judah and other bullies
During interrogation, when the police pins the insolent Phwedo, the detective pulls out a bracelet which was found at Mphatso’s death scene. Phwedo remembers that it is one that Richie claimed to be his after it had slipped off his hand during a fight with another student.
When Richie is called for questioning, it is revealed that it was the same bracelet he grabbed from Leticia, the girl he wants desperately yet the girl was in love with Mphatso. On his way to the hostel while drunk, Mphatso meets Richie who warns Mphatso to keep away from Leticia and hits Mphatso who dies on the spot on which the bracelet Richie wears slips off.
“School Days” the movie
The movie is a well-crafted story line with precise happenings in schools especially boarding secondary schools. For a person who has ever been to a boarding school, the movie, open floodgates of both good and sweet memories.
Apart from highlighting more on the chilling inhumane scenes such as when Phwedo fells the crippled Form 1 student off the wheelchair, students who beat senior team in a match are made to undress and have cold water poured on them on a chilly night, the female bullies who acted like their male colleagues by smoking and drinking beer with reckless abandon, snatching money meant for offering at students’ prayer gathering, “School days” tells some stories of careless teachers who prey on school children as seen when Mr Chibwe, a teacher , gets into a sexual relationship with a student Agnes who later falls pregnant. Chibwe tries to get her abort the pregnancy which she refused.
The movie also lays bare how schools’ administrations allow teasing and bullying to flourish while they look the other way as when some three Form 1 students reported cases of bullying to the headmaster who bluntly dismissed them telling them bullying and teasing are entrenched cultures of the school.
Little dent, characters
Almost all the actors played their party well-fitting school days. Bar the teachers, who were average, they were perfect in their costume of mis-matches which was common of teachers in those days.
The character of Phwedo is a lively, serious a brutal bully which makes him stand out, Chuksy (Kendall Kamwendo) has a grand outing with his imposing stature and command when giving orders. Mphatso, also had an excellent outing when he depicts a poor boy with his demeanour that perfectly fits him. Leticia, Richie enrichen the movie with their consistency.
The movie’s flaw, however not a bigger dent, is that as a movie about school, it lacks a little music to spice it up. The biggest flaw is that the movie needed some serious editing of the subtitles as, on many occasions, the translation is found wanting.
Ingenuity of threading, and the end
Richie bumps into Leticia and snatches a bracelet, Leticia is wowed by the genius Mphatso, Richie is desperate for have Leticia by bullying and threatening Mphatso because he is Leticia’s. In the course, Richie kills Mphatso “inadvertently”. In the act, the bracelet he snatches from Leticia earlier in the movie slips from his wrist. Before that Richie is involved in a fight with another student and Phwedo is the one to notices it. This means the bracelet always falls off when the arm is moved violently, as it deed when he hit Mphatso. Ironically, it is Phwedo who is the one to identify the bracelet at the police station.
Richie snatches Leticia’s bracelet then snatched Leticia’s love Mphatso by killing him. The bracelet that Richie snatches from Leticia’s ends up being the evidence that get Richie imprisoned. A sad ending to a story that deserves a happy.
The movie, which is a story by Kendall Kamwendo, written by Bester “Bong’a “ Kauwa and Lurence Nyale is co-produced by Kendall Kamwendo and Kauwa takes people down the memory lane of old school days with accuracy and firm command.
