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“To God be the Glory”
– a Bridging Sin in
Nollywood
by Nnorom Azuonye
I have seen quite a bit of Nollywood films in my lifetime;
from the excitement-inducing trailblazers such as "Living in
Bondage", "Rattlesnake" and "Violated", through such titles
as "A Christmas Passion", "Eziza, 3 days and 3 nights", to
"Mama G in the USA", "Osuofia in London", "Blood of an
Orphan", "Lucky Joe" and lots more. In all honesty, over the
years I have been greatly entertained, amused, irritated and
sometimes offended by the films - the offence coming from
the unbelievable levels of some productions' shoddiness.
Like every other film industry
in the world, the Nigerian one offers good films and bad
films. And in the true fashion everything else given to mass
production, whilst one or two gems could be found in
Nollywood, the bulk of the productions are outrageously
horrible and marred by what Zeb Ejiro summed up in an
interview I read a while ago with one word: mediocrity.
Most of the time, the story lines in Nollywood films are so
far-fetched that it is surprising anyone could even
contemplate them. There are only a handful of Nollywood
films in which any effort has been made to develop a
character three-dimensionally. The screenwriters generally
have no ears for dialogue, logic of setting often does not
exist, and there is no depth in the plot. Some
directors are to blame too; those directors that simply get
actors and actresses to hang around their sets dragging
their masses through the scenes that cannot even be called
scenes, completely wasting film time. The pace or lack of
pace in the films is probably the most painful aspect of the
films because even the die-hard Nollywood fan now recognises
that it is a ploy to drag out the story to make sure it ends
up either a bipartite or tripartite production, meaning more
money to be spent by the fan to get the whole story.
Like many fans of Nollywood, I don’t have the luxury of the
time to go through six hours trying to get to the end of one
movie. I have been forced to say in discussions that the
majority of what is coming out of Nollywood are not movies,
they are more like mini-series because there is hardly any
film coming out of the industry that is complete that is
with a beginning, a middle and an end. The concept of a
sequel has been completely misunderstood by Nollywood. A
sequel is a literary work, movie, or performance that is
COMPLETE IN ITSELF but continues the narrative of a
preceding work. The important phrase here being ‘complete in
itself’. This cannot be said of maybe 90 percent of any part
Nollywood films.
Every time I sit down to watch a Nigerian film on Nollywood
Channel, AIT or Nigeria Movies, if the film is half-decent
and makes me want to sit through it, I become anxious as I
get more into the story because of the high likelihood of
the film cutting out in the middle of a scene or idea with
the inevitable words ‘To God be the Glory’, followed by
credits and an invitation to watch out for part two or part
three as the case may be. Many times, I either don’t know
when the other parts are broadcast, or they are not
broadcast at all. So I feel cheated, frustrated and angry.
Is it too much to ask that Nollywood film-makers set out to
make complete films with every outing? It would be
refreshing to see a new film out of Nollywood that is
complete in itself - a film in which the conflicts that are
raised reach a satisfying dénouement. Then a year or
two down the line, if at all it is necessary, a sequel may
be made that is also complete in itself. A further five
years down the line, the producers might even be forgiven to
do a George Lucas and produce a bunch of prequels as in the
Star Wars franchise.
It is my fervent prayer that Nollywood film-makers begin to
wean themselves off the ‘To God be the Glory’ state of
practice - a most unfortunate bridging sin between segments
of overlong, lax tales. They can do this by identifying more
pungent points of attack in their screenplays, editing off
unnecessary scenes, encouraging sharper dialogue and knowing
when the story actually ends or should end instead of the
current overuse of Deux Ex Machina either in the form of a
Christian miracle, a prayer answered rather too quickly, a
voodoo help out or implausibly efficient Nigerian police
force. It is my belief that if a film-maker sets out to make
a complete movie that will fit into 90 minutes to 120
minutes, and plots the through line of his action properly,
he will work with a taut script, his Thespian talents will
work with a sense of purpose and the final work will be
dramatically and technically satisfying and should stand the
test of time. NF
©2008 Nnorom Azuonye
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