by Akinwande Jordan
The world as we know it is moving at the mythological speed of Hermes. Nigeria is at the epicentre of socio-economic unrest, global markets are crashing like wrestlers daring unrehearsed stunts, doomsayers might even purport that a total collapse is imminent. Like the Achebe novel ; we are no longer at ease. Yet, despite the chaos, the gears of industry never cease, the stage lights are never off and the music plays on.
Streamers and independent filmmakers alike carry on and we follow by engaging with home-grown cinema and TV; action, political thrillers, shorts, romance, horror et al. But it is time to halt the entertainment, review the strangeness of the year and pronounce some of the films and tv shows that have defined it so far.
It may be the general dysphoria of everything – 2023 elections, the general decay of the country – but the films of 2024 have been a bit divisive, more divisive than most years. It seems as though we are living in an age of monotony and pastiche.
There are, however, noteworthy films that blazed a trail away from the gutters of streamers and Internet comedian-fraught franchises. Here are some of the top 3 Nollywood movies of 2024 so far (we are in the business of no spoilers)
Kill Boro
A cinematic grand-lovechild of the first features project heralded by veteran filmmakers Dotun Olakunri and Steve Gukas. Written by Priye Diri and directed by Courage Obayuwana (his debut feature) and featuring an ensemble of actors such as Philip Asaya, Ini Dima-Okojie, Greg Ojefua and the young Kosi Ogborueche.
Kill Boro hails from a rare form of cinema that leaves you with psychic sutures as it tells a grim, blood-curling tale of domestic violence, semi-organised crime, systemic decay and a quest for vengeful patricide. Morosity is the unyielding tenor of the film; a dire morosity that beholds a magnetism that’s unwavering in the turmoil of plot.
Ini Dimi-Okojie’s sullen performance exudes pathos to the lid but nothing is exploitatively imbalanced. Everything in Kill Boro, amidst the conspicuous tragedy, is delicate and fluid. Though it waltzes in the sinful realm of didacticism, it exercises restraint — it does not instruct your emotions.
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti
Biopics by default pose a tricky balancing act devised by cinema’s equivalent of the devil but they are the life and blood of Oscars and pop scholars of the ages past. Under the directorial deftness of Bolanle Austen-Peters, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti falls in a category upheld by necessity contrariwise to the merits as a film judged by its crafting and not its overt revisionist component.
Nevertheless, Tunde Babalola (October 1) weaves a script to project the revolutionary exploits of the storied feminist icon in tandem with her coming of age. Recounted through the tongue of an aged FRK (Joke Silva) reminiscing hand-in-hand with us as we strut down history’s forgotten lane, there’s no laxity or gimmick when Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti is the central character and though it becomes superficial when it attempts to broaden historical events and/or salient historical actors — there’s a course correction steered by Kehinde Bankole who plays Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti at the apogee of her iconoclasm and revolutionary ventures.
But the resounding tone here in the biopic is how the unfolding of events lends itself to the splinters of a forgotten age and a call to order on diluting history and how we choose to remember women of ineradicable greatness.
A Green Fever
Whatever your tastes are, noir draws you in and illuminates the dark crevices of your heart that aches for stark suspense, dualism and realism; the classic and all-encompassing good versus evil, protagonist and antagonist, anti-hero versus imperium.
Taiwo Egunjobi and Isaac Ayodeji’s ARIFF-acclaimed A Green Fever is a crime-drama that ambitiously aims for the stars to demonstrate to us how they see the world; desolate, ominously quiet and somnolent terrains. The plot doesn’t exactly set the Thames on fire: A suave motor-mouthed realtor, his ailing daughter (afflicted with the eponymous fever), the inconvenience of a medical emergency, a coup d’etat, a malevolent colonel and the oozing of suspense.
William Benson’s performance as Colonel Bashiru is the mainspring of the film as he approaches the role with no excess or theatrical superfluity, no desire to impose or emote the grandiosity of evil, only the benignness of it with tautness and a militaristic presence. All accolades given to the visual language of the film — every shot aims to be a rembrandt or a verdant, gothic-esque version of it but it is done gracefully and stealthily, eschewing an over-aestheticization of the last pre-internet decade.
There exists solid criticism regarding the on-the-nose dialogues pervasive in the film’s three acts but in the sum of all parts it manages to dazzle, leaving the door ajar to a room for improvement.
Brief as this list is, we must know it isn’t over until the fat lady sings — the year is still marching on towards the ember months. But thus far the above films have managed to command our notice in the gigantic medley of films released this year in our neck of the woods. A most strange year it has been, hasn’t it? We shall see you at the end.