Revisiting That’s Life Mwattu, episode one

If you do not know your past, sometimes it becomes hard to know the future. Over the years, the local film industry has made strides, on the big and small screen.

The shot composition is better, the sound is captured better, and the technology is ensuring everything is better. This, however, does not mean the past is dead to us. Which is the reason we  decided to revisit a Ugandan TV classic.

In January 1993, The Ebonies premiered a serial TV drama, That’s Life Mwattu. The opening episode, which is currently available on YouTube, The Impossible Bitch (funny how that was not even blurred in the opening sequence), follows the life of Dr Dick Walusimbi (Paul Katende), who gets frustrated with his bratty partner Vicky (Rose Kamya) in the city and decides to go to Kiboga Village, where he picks up avillage girl Nakawunde (Harriet Nalubwama), to be his wife.  Nakawunde must navigate the new life as well as put up with Dick’s ex Vicky. Well, that is in a nutshell.

The episode on YouTube is surprisingly watchable and engaging, and for many of us who never watched it when it aired for the first time, it is proof that storytelling and filmmaking may have been on the right path.

But one of the most interesting things is the fact that the picture quality is still commendable all these years later. But the gist is in the dialogue; part of it is outdated but very relevant. For instance, the opening shot has Dick and Vicky at home when his friends, Dr Bbosa (Sam Bagenda) and Denise (Josephine Kamirembe), come to pick them up to go out.

While having a conversation, the two men start talking about justice, with Dick saying in Uganda, when one steals from the people, there is only a two-day fuss in the media. Much as the episode was shot and aired 31 years ago, what people thought about Uganda now and then is the same, and the public knows it. Probably what has changed is what the corrupt do with their loot. For instance, Dick says the corrupt will always go on and buy a Carina (it was apparently an expensive car then). Today, of course, the corrupt will build an apartment and no one will even know they own it.

The episode goes on to capture the spirit of 1990s social life, when nightclubs were  more about dancing than just drinking. One of the characters captures it so well when she tells her lover that they went out to socialise not to stick with the people  they went out with.

The Ebonies was initially a performing group, with Jimmy Katumba as a lead singer;

thus, in the first years of the TV show, it was a fully blown musical where some situations were sang. This episode’s main premise is a debate about equality in a home.  Dick was liberal and failing to stay at home with Vicky; Bbosa, on the other hand, was conservative  and all-knowing husband yet he seemed happy with the uneven situation in his home.

To date, the situation of Dick and Bbosa has not been fully sorted out by the public, the debate of equality or submission is still in the public court, with some for or against it.

All these years later, That’s Life Mwattu’s first episode is still poignant and powerful, unlike many things we produce with big budgets today. They tackled politics, corruption, marriage, and issues of equality in 23 minutes and yet still managed to entertain.

The question would be, when did drama start avoiding commenting about issues? That is the story for another day.