At last Batswana get Nigerian-style movie in Chobolo

EPHRAIM KEORENG
Staff Writer | Wednesday February 11, 2009 00:00

 

By their nature, the movies address domestic violence, cheating love partners, witchcraft, alcoholism and other social problems afflicting the poor in contemporary societies in Africa.

Chobolo is the name of the flick and the main character. She is not your ordinary woman.

Here the producer makes a parody of the whole patriarchal system, where men are the heads of family and are wont to use violence to settle old scores or quarrels, especially with their wives and concubines. In Chobolo, the main character, who is a woman, epitomises an abusive person who is quick to use violence whenever she feels affronted.

Her husband is always at the receiving end of her anger and often baseless accusations.

In Botswana, and Africa as a whole, it is taboo for a woman to beat her husband up.

Though such husbands are repeatedly clobbered by their spouses, it is something that they are not keen to openly discuss in public. Even here in Botswana, we often have cases of men who are taunted by officers whenever they report the cases at the police stations.

This kind of violence needs to be equally fought because, like a virus, it is likely to eat away at the core of the society.

Chobolo also has a touch of the comical and is likely to throw a viewer into laughter. A young woman struts across the streets and on the way accosts a man, seeking direction to the bus rank. She says 'ke kopa tsela,' a Setswana expression that one uses to kindly ask for direction and when he opens his mouth to responding, the jaw breaker comes out as the man says 'Ga ke dire tsela, a ke lebega jaaka motho wa roads (I don't construct roads, do I look like a road builder?).'

The producer also sheds light on the issue of cheating partners. People often wonder why someone would love you and betray you at the same time, giving out her/his love to someone else.

The flick begs the society to say is possible to love more than one person. It also examines the materialistic attitude that is replete within our society, where values of love are compromised for cash.

Chobolo, who mistreats her husband, also forces him to give her all his earnings every monthend. When he does not, she threatens to withhold his conjugal rights until he surrenders all the cash to her.

The flick is good for family viewing but one would need to exercise parental control because some of the scenes are strictly for adults only.