KwaZulu Natal Film Commission, The Final Chapter Productions Studios, Department of Trade, Industries and Competition, Durban Film Office present Faneli Zulu (Joe), Lungelo Mpangase (Nozi), Hungani Ndlovu (Kags), Simo Magwaza (Moses), Mbali Maphumulo (Irene), Melusi Yeni (Vusi), Hope Mbhele (Jessie). Director, Zuko Nodada; Screenwriter, Steven Pillemer; Producers, Thandeka Nodada, Zuko Nodada, Steven Pillemer’ Assoc Producers, Mpumezo Mathibe KaVuzane; Executive Producers, Thami Zondi, Steven Pillemer. © 2023.
This movie is named after, well not after, but called the same as Nat King Cole’s prodigy daughter, Natalie Cole’s song. Our love was her 1977 release. Our love, the movie doesn’t have much to do with Natalie’s song. You may walk your way into it, but they have nothing in common. Our love is a relationship between “Madam Impish” (Nozi) and “Mr. Enigma” (Joe)–a misnamed title for this film—names I coined for both, to suit literally. Joe (Faneli Zulu) and Nozi (Lungelo Mpangase) grew up in the same household of Moses (Simo Magwaza), the father of Nozi, and Joe as a mechanic apprentice. The film opens with Joe buying a beautiful engagement ring for a loved one. We believe the young fellow has someone in mind.
Nozi is homegrown, under mom and dad, but made for higher achievements in life. She passes her final year examination with Cum Laude and answers for an interview at a large company in Durban, South Africa. Overall, Nozi, I assign her a literary name, “Madam Impish.” As defined, Nozi is mischievous as they come; she is playful and never takes herself seriously or anything about her as serious. There comes “Mr. Enigma” (Joe), an apprentice mechanic in Moses’s (Simo Magwaza) household, the mechanic shop owner. Joe’s father killed his mother and younger brother at a young age. And he grows up with that gruesome experience, a raging storm that brews in him, like a terminal disease that won’t go away. Moses adopted him and had grown to know them as a parent and, therefore, revered them.
Growing up in the same household, Joe and Nozi, in their elementary lives, fall in love as childhood playmates, playing ‘Hide and Seek’ with butterflies fluttering around as they giggle and laugh at nature in the wild. Later, as they grow up, Joe believes there is no better love than the company of Nozi. With her parents’ consent, he buys an engagement ring for Nozi but keeps it to himself. Nozi’s parents believe, by their gut instincts, Joe could take good care of their only daughter. Joe senses it is coming; hence, he buys her a ring to engage her and even fronts six hefty cows for his bride’s price. However, the problem here is that Joe never approaches Nozi about his intention of love for her. When Nozi, impish and career driven, passes her final exam Cum Laude and happens to procure a job in Durban, Joe sees an opportunity to be with her. However, the relationship is different once Nozi and Joe reach Durban: the bright light, big city syndrome, sets in.
Nozi gets the job with the company alright, but her boss, Kags (Hungani Ndlovu), immediately takes to her impishness and intends to marry her. He assumes his ailing father could turn over the company to him once he gets married, especially a country girl. From the onset of Nozi’s relationship with Kags, Joe has a series of falling outs, to the point of a fistfight between the two. Joe could not take the humiliations Kags and his city friends were putting him through. He has to fight back for his dignity. One could think he’s performing the duty thrown upon him by Nozi’s father, but in reality, he is protecting the one thing he has come to cherish all his life without telling it to the world. Not long after, they (Nozi and Joe) break off their relationship, and Joe moves out alone. The saving grace in Joe’s uncertain life in the sprawling metropolitan Durban, is his talent for singing and playing guitar, and he quickly gets a sponsor to arrange gigs for him at nightclubs.
Moses, “But you won’t be going alone. I’m coming with you.”
Nozi, “Dad, how about asking Joe to come with me instead?”
Joe, standing within earshot, jumps in.
“I don’t have a problem with that.”
Moses walks over to Joe as he still stands within earshot of the conversation between father and daughter and stands towering over him, authoritatively, in a harsh but whispering tone:
“You’d better watch her like a hawk. Do you hear me? If anything happens to her, I’ll kill you. Marry her.”
Joe never got over Nozi, especially after remembering the stern warnings his mechanic boss, Nozi’s father, had given him and the six cows he had put down on the betrothal fee. Through the talent of Joe’s music and gigs, he cuts a song track in memory of Nozi that goes on to top the charts in the entire country, and to Nozi’s surprise, she learns of the love Joe had buried in his heart for her. Before long, however, Kags hurries and engages Nozi, and a wedding date is set.
Kags rushes to marry Nozi because his father didn’t take to city rats (girls) for his son, and Nozi was just what his dad wished for in a relationship with his only son before his impending death. The marriage, or call it a wedding, is set. Nozi’s parents, Kag’s mother, father, and company members are present at the wedding. But, to everyone’s surprise, she runs away from the altar before she says, “I do.” She catches up with Joe as he sits in his battered open-top car, ready to leave; both leave and stop at the same scene where they swore the pinky promise once.
Character analysis of these players: Kags, Nozi, and Joe make up the body of Our Love. Joe grows up in the same cradle as Nozi, knowing her as the toddler playmate, and he fidgets in her father’s mechanic shop as an apprentice. Moses and his wife, having to know the characteristics of Joe, both intuitively think he could be the best husband for their only daughter. They must have thought Joe could be a suitable inheritor of Moses’ mechanic shop. Hence, Moses even haggled the six cows’ bride price with Joe and, thus, forced the young fellow to accompany their daughter to Durban. “Marry her!” You remember the last instruction Moses gives Joe at their parting. Nozi, like all women in a relationship, had better thoughts and even thoughts ahead of Joe. She forced Joe to take along his guitar with him, which he reluctantly did, and as it turned out, the guitar and his singing talents turned out to be his Hail Mary.
Nozi only knows Joe as a boy adopted by her parents, and she grows up to know him not as a brother but as one she can rely on in times of need. Her mother doesn’t tell Nozi that Joe has a marriage ring with her name on it, and she’s all for it; she supports her husband’s decision for Joe to escort her daughter to Durban. When Nozi and Joe get to the outskirts of Durban, their car pulls up at a place overlooking the city, and they behold the picturesque town below. They heave a sigh of relief. Joe and Nozi, like once more in their youths, upon looking at such beautiful scenery together, which in reality provokes uncanny romantic feelings, and catching feelings for each other, get to make a pinky promise to each other that they will always come to this spot for a picnic. Thank God that promise isn’t lost upon the screenwriter, Steven Pillemer, when he brings Nozi and Joe to the same place at the end of the story.
Upon interviewing Nozi, Kags told her there should be no personal or romantic relationship between company workers. But after a short while, Kags catches feelings for Nozi. Kag’s father doesn’t take to any city rats for his son; he’d prefer his only son to get married to a country girl, like Nozi, instead. Nozi comes in handy. Nozi, by herself observation, couldn’t fit in Kags, wild city life, smoking, and unorthodox sex life. These are lifestyles her father warned against. She must have fallen for the crude form of love rather than the sophisticated upperclass stuff.
The one thing about the whole setup is that Nozi, being as impish as she is, never checks herself to see that Joe is in love with her. He has even bought a ring and haggled her bride’s price with her father, yet unbeknownst to her, yet, as playful as she is, never notices. She feels naturally good in Joe’s company when she visits his quaint apartment. She didn’t even want to leave, even as Joe was seemingly but half-heartedly, driving her off; Joe enjoyed her company very much. His happiness and everything is bundled up in the love of Nozi, and he cherishes every moment she’s in that apartment with him. Both have come to find out they love each other. The wailing cry of Joe’s voice in his song in her memory confirms he had nurtured a love for her all along; she reasons the true love, the natural love of Joe over Kags. Hence, she runs from the alter to chase after the crude country boy, leaving behind the glory of marrying a rich city boy, Kags.
The twenty-eight-year-old South African actress and model Lungelo Mpangase has a great future in South African cinema. She has shown unbeatable prowess since her debut on the silver screen at age 17. It is no wonder that her acting in Our Love is so remarkable, and in 2019, she got a nomination for Best Supporting Actress in the Simon Mabhunu Film and Television Awards. Her partner, in the leading role, debuted in the short film The Memoir of an Honest Man (2014), for which he won an award from the African Movie Academy Awards in 2016 Best Short Film—Hugani studied at Flii’Cademy, Los Angeles, and graduated in Hip Hop choreography. But one fantastic character in Our Love is Faneli Zulu, and if I were to choose between him and Thabo Rametsi (Calvin Khumalo) of Silverton Siege (2022), I’d pass. Uncannily, I observe that the cadre of South African film players is primarily young.