Hackney goes to Nollywood
West Africa to East London: Nollywood DVDs at Ridley Road Market. Photo:©Josh Loeb
ONCE you get over the fact that the pregnant woman in the opening scenes of Royal Messengers quite obviously has a lumpy pillow shoved down the front of her dress, the film settles into a plot that would have most right-thinking people shooting steam out of their ears. Royal Messengers is a tale of an ageing prince called Igwe (Leo Mezie) who has 21 daughters but not a single son to take over his kingdom.
When the woman with the pillow down her dress shamefully gives birth to another girl, Igwe gives up any hope of having a young prince. But fear not: the local witchdoctor foresees that Igwe has a son that he does not know about, who lives in a slum in Lagos. The mystery son, played by child sensation Chinedu Ikedieze (think Macaulay Culkin, Lagos style) is accompanied by his sidekick played by Osita Iheme. These kids are easily the best actors in this film, possessing comic timing and precocious delivery.
De Prof, starring Nkem Owoh and Clem Ohamezie, is an interminable film. Equipped with the somewhat incoherent tagline, “Will one scheme against the other? Maybe the younger one will or vice versa”, De Prof is a tragic Cain and Abel-style drama about two brothers who jealously vie for leadership of their community.
De Prof is hampered by atrocious production. At a cost to any reasonable narrative structure early in the film, the cameraman develops an unhealthy obsession with a dwarf who inexplicably appears at various points throughout the film. In addition the same epileptic keyboard loop provides the soundtrack for the entire two hours. Owoh and Ohamzie – both able actors – are lassoed by the most hackneyed of scripts that simply goes nowhere. In spite of the actors’ best efforts, De Prof is a very difficult film to watch.
Village Destroyer, starring Kenneth Okonkwo, is easily the pick of the bunch, with the best acting and tightest script. This is another film preoccupied with male fertility problems, only this time, poor Nwabueze seems to be infertile and has become the laughing stock of his village. Then one day his wife gives birth to a baby girl. After initial elation, Nwabueze inexplicably goes mad. At this stage the film slightly falls apart, becoming a confusing mush of screaming women and voodoo ceremonies. It is nevertheless highly entertaining: you don’t really need to understand it to enjoy the emotional uproar. This film is worth watching for the star turns by Okonkwo and Emeka Ani alone.
When You Are Mine is a hilarious (though perhaps not intentionally so) take on adultery and disability. Joyce (Queen Nwaokoye) marries Ken, a slimeball who mysteriously bleeds from his forehead and has a bloated mother called ‘Madam’.
When buxom maneater Chessy (Patience Ozokwor) arrives in town, ‘Madam’, who lives vicariously through her son, encourages her to seduce him with the immortal words: “A man can be made to commit adultery, even against his will.”
There is clearly some sort of reverse Oedipus complex in operation in this film: ‘Madam’ exults in Chessy’s unwanted affection towards Ken and the pregnancy that results. Meanwhile, Joyce is wheelchair-bound after a car accident. Eventually, Ken and Chessy get their comeuppance when they both die on their way to the registry office.