Zamo Mkhwanazi’s debut feature, Laundry, is an engaging tale about family, music, and the reality of oppression in apartheid South Africa in the 1960s. As such, there are no answers to be found in it. There are never clear answers to systems of oppression, no explanation that makes sense for how apartheid could have happened despite the world at large saying things like “never again.” But Laundry is not interested in philosophical answers, anyway. Instead, this is a movie about how you survive and also how you live when the system is against you.
Laundry presents two contrasting viewpoints to tell that story, while focusing on a family-run laundry business operating in a whites-only area. There’s Enoch (Siyabonga Shibe), the father, who is allowed to operate his business in the area due to an exemption that might protect his business, but that doesn’t actually protect him from the day-to-day aggressions of apartheid. Then there’s his son Khuthala (Ntobeko Sishi), who will one day inherit the business, except all he wants to do is make music.
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And in the middle of that, there are the little moments between a family. Brother and sister, mother and son, parents and their kids. Moments that are about joy and love, because that’s the one thing the laws can never take from us.
Visually immersive and very good at conveying emotion through the same music Khuthala loves, Laundry is less about the reality of South Africa in a time that a lot of people will only know about because of the name Mandela, and more about how that reality affected specific people. It’s also about what a system like apartheid robs you of, and what it means to have a dream in a place where dreams feel like the kind of luxury you cannot afford.
For Enoch, a pragmatist, you do the best you can, while still following the rules because that’s how you stay out of trouble. Khuthala, however, yearns for the world he deserves—one where his immense musical talent will be put to good use. His family doesn’t understand it, but that’s the thing about dreams. You don’t stop dreaming just because they feel unreachable.
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The struggle of this one particular family to avoid trouble within the confines of a structure of oppression that will make sure problems find you, no matter how much you keep your head down and try to blend in, is a clear example of what apartheid really was. It was not just a series of laws and restrictions meant to keep Black people from accumulating wealth and status. It was a system put in place to break Black people’s spirits. Dreaming, in 1968 South Africa, if you were Black, was almost an act of rebellion.
Overall, Laundry feels like a powerful reminder that history is cyclical and that injustices perpetrated by a large group of people are not anomalies, but decisions made over and over again. And though the message, by itself, makes it feel like a necessary movie in the times we’re living in, perhaps the most magical part about it is that watching never feels like homework. Instead, it feels like being part of a story that isn’t just about the struggles, but about the possibilities.
Laundry screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
