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TV REVIEW
Impilo
Mzansi Magic (DStv channel 161)
Monday, 8pm
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With what looks like a modest budget, the new local drama series Impilo: The Scam about a schoolboy getting dragged into his dad’s pyramid scheme in Alexandra, manages to do a lot. And although not everything works, it deserves an A for effort.
Viscerally, Impilo feels like Skeem Saam 2.0. It is as quietly and understatedly refreshing as when that teen angst series started on SABC1 almost eight years ago.
Impilo shows not troubled youth but how our country’s young people are being pulled in many directions by a troubled world.
While a smiley and miscast Desmond Dube as pyramid scheme scammer-dad Khulubuse Mtshali fails with his unconvincing acting, the show’s big find is the wonderful Sipho Mdingi as Mnqobi Nkosi. Mdingi is utterly believable as the struggling matric pupil trying to take care of his sick younger brother and his stoic and downtrodden mom Nokulunga (Sthandiwe Kgoroge), who has lost her job.
Like any kid, Nkosi wants some money. He gets entangled with the bully’s girlfriend at school and starts working for his estranged dad. Through his dad’s exploitation scheme, he’s exposed to alcohol, violence and cheating of all sorts.
Take a hard look South Africa, at how toxic masculinity works in a cyclical effect with a show that deftly illustrates how broken men break other men.
While some of the acting remains iffy throughout the 13-episode series, the cinematography is the second best of all new local TV series that have made their debut this year. The best so far has been Kyknet’s Alles Malan.
The framing captures the essence of Nkosi’s loneliness and borderline desperation. He wants a better life. He wants money for his mom, for his brother’s operation and to have a girlfriend. And although he loathes duping gogos into “investing” in juices for arthritis and creams for diabetes, which he knows don’t work, he’s desperate for his absent dad’s approval.
On a technical level, Impilo boasts wonderful camerawork, sound and editing, and hints at a better TV future production-wise in a real form of #OpenUpTheIndustry.
The project comes from A Tribe Called Story, with assistance from the legendary Clive Morris Productions. The film making trio consisting of writer Mbali Zulu, producer Aluta Qupa and director Thembalethu Mfebe, who graduated from M-Net’s Magic in Motion film academy.
Established production houses should team up with new talent behind the scenes to create series that reflect current issues. Such character-driven dramas with storylines infused with an edutainment aspect, will not just show us as viewers who we are but what we should and shouldn’t be.
