ANIKULAPO: AN OSCILLATION BETWEEN CULTURAL MEMORY AND IDIOCULTURE

Joseph Omoniyi

Synopsis/Summary

Going into Anikulapo, your expectation bar is supercharged and placed extremely high, partly because it is spearheaded by one of Nigeria’s most accomplished filmmakers, Kunle Afolayan, with an out-of-the-box mindset. Nevertheless, this is different. With Anikulapo, Kunle is everywhere and all over this film; directing, production and art design, acting, and story development takes a supernatural point of view from a verse of Ifa, inspired by Poet, Author, and Ifa Priest, Ifayemi Elebuibon. The 142-minute mystical folklore was released on Netflix on the 30th September, Kunle’s birthday, and barely 3 hours later, reactions trailed the movie with controversial feedback.

Anikulapo tells a story of Saro, the simple cloth-weaver in search of a greener pasture. He enters Oyo into the welcoming hands of Awarun, who shows him so much kindness and hospitality, offering him shelter and food but also a job and then turns him into her special toy. But who says no to such a “trabaye” lifestyle? Despite being warned by Akanji (Mr macaroni) about Awarun’s “man-eating” ploy, Saro turns a deaf ear, enjoys ‘the life of his head’, banging his sugar mommy while he gets special treatment among her workers. “Ikun njogede ikun re’di, ikun o mo pe oun to dun nii n pa’ni” – Saro, the proverbial monkey, do not know what gives joy sometimes leads to death.

Every world has rules guiding it; mystical, pseudo- scientific, and contemporary. How do you upturn the rules of who gets to live or die without consequences?

Meanwhile, there is Queen Arolake, a beautiful but dissatisfied and youngest wife of the king, who is on the wrong side of palace jealousy and bullying. When Saro finally gets networked to the palace to make clothes for the royals, during his first visit to the palace, he meets Arolake, and it is love at first sight, a very one-sided love at first sight. That is why the event that follows is very shocking. Arolake tails Saro and eventually rapes him. A couple of love-makings after, they both decide to elope to continue their sex adventure. Not so fast, they are exposed, caught, and Saro is sentenced to death. Enters, Akala bird to determine his fate, finds him wanting, decides to escort him to his final destination, but not before Arolake “shoosh” the almighty mystical bird with a stick. She picks up Akala’s power gourd, and there begins their change of fate. After hiding the gourd from Saro for no reason, Arolake finally hands him the gourd when the only son of their landlord dies. Saro using the gourd, wakes the boy and his fame immediately travels the village. He is soon named Anikulapo, raising dead, even those that want to just rest in peace. The couple becomes rich thanks to the ‘thank you gifts’ from the grateful villagers and king. But Saro wants more. He makes more demands, slaves, properties, and wives, replacing Arolake and relegating her to the shadow of her former shadows. When Arolake sees that her once heartthrob is irredeemable, she seizes an opportunity to pick between death and love, a decision that leaves both of them with grievous consequences.

Shot in Oyo State, inside Kunle’s newly built film village, the movie features a conglomerate of super veteran actors from opposing factions of the Yoruba arm of Nollywood, Taiwo Hassan, Kareem Adepoju, Oga BelloYinka Quadri, Dele Odule, Ropo Ewenla, Faithia Balogun, Sola Sobowale, Sunday Omobolanle, Adeoye Adewale(Elesho), Samson Eluwole, Yemi Elebuibon, Ayandotun Emmanuel, Moji Afolayan and shining stars of today’s generation, Kunle Remi, Bimbo Ademoye, Adebowale Adedayo (Mr Macaroni) and Hollywood’s Hakeem Kai Kazeem.

CDP

One of the spines of every good story is the central dramatic problem or what some call question and how it creatively weaves it into the story’s engine to hook the audience. It is the single driving force of the narrative. What is the central character’s objective, and will they succeed in getting or achieving it? This question must be known to the audience from act one but should not be easy to answer. In Anikulapo, Saro, a cloth-weaver migrant from Gbogan, enters the Oyo empire in search of a better life. This is established when he meets Awarun, a wealthy entrepreneur woman and member of the Oyomesi (Council of chiefs), and tells her that what he wants is a cloth-weaving business, but something is not right; we soon realise this is not just what Saro wants. After getting a roof over his head, and a job as a clay moulder, what is wrong with f*cking a sugar mummy, especially if that sugar mummy is your benefactor and boss? It fast-tracks your objective. We are left with, “will there be consequences for his lack of contentment” or, is it a matter of when? This dramatic problem is used to drive home the themes of this piece; contentment, greed, pride, and betrayal. This easily reminds you of some of the tortoise stories told under the moon in those days.

Sex and nudity scenes serve two purposes in a movie. One is functional, that is, serving the narrative of the story. The second is gratuitous. Obviously, the sex scenes do not serve the narrative. So, if we are going to settle for being gratuitous, it has to be consistent.

Plot/Sub-plot/Plants

Some things do not just make sense in the plot. Like, Arolake beating off a mystical bird with a stick, stealing its power gourd afterwards, and then using it repeatedly without consequences. So, these are fantastic ideas for fantasy movies, but they are not just set up without being properly thought out. Every world has rules guiding it; mystical, pseudo- scientific, and contemporary. How do you upturn the rules of who gets to live or die without consequences?

Where in Yoruba land is a king allowed in the same room with a dead body? How Saro’s eye which had been chopped off, miraculously reappeared.

These questions are left unanswered.

Also, at the introduction of slave trade, and tax conflict, it looked like some spices to the plot, only for it to end up as distractive plants. It does nothing to the narrative. But we get it. The cast veterans must have some things to say. They cannot be as ‘dumb’ as the king.

The progression of the plot is so on the nose and lacks any rhythm. No low point, no high point, and pretty predictable.

Screenplay

 “Shara yin ya sha? Ki n da yin lara ya?” Written by Shola Dada, the screenplay wastes much time doing set-up. The movie has no business with such length, over two hours. Packed with unnecessary characters and irrelevant scenes, the beginning drags and will take serious and extra determination to finish at first watch if you see it on Netflix. However, you can yank off almost all of the first act, and the story will still make sense.

The screenplay is set up with a grand opening, a narration by Ifayemi that sums up the story’s plot and then takes us into the origin of how Saro came to be a dead man. It then distracts us with the Tapa tax, pre-colonial slave-trade plots left unresolved, and the palace jealousy that takes more than necessary pages of the screenplay. The engine of every screenplay is its structure, and the only thing that makes a story structure is a major character who goes on a journey, encountering various hurdles to get what they want or not. In Anikulapo, Saro is the driver and his greedy, discontented self, the conflict.

The screenplay successfully establishes the principal character, his want, and conflict, setting up the thematic relevance of the story in a way the audience would easily relate to and selling a powerful message. But it fails at creating a twist, with a predictable ending, *synonymous with folklores.

One of the significant points of controversy for this film is the sex and nude scenes. Now, the fact that the movie tries a GOT wannabe is not the problem. Regarding Hollywood versus Nollywood, we Nigerians can be hypocrites, especially with nudities. However, the nude scenes are unnecessary. Sex and nudity scenes serve two purposes in a movie. One is functional, that is, serving the narrative of the story. The second is gratuitous. Obviously, the sex scenes do not serve the narrative. So, if we are going to settle for being gratuitous, it has to be consistent. But the director did not show us the bumb*m of the king and Awarun. So, why now?

The language rendition of the dialogue also scores this film low. It looks like the director just took the easy way out in the film. The screenwriter obviously has no quality grasp of, not just the right variance of the Oyo Yoruba but is also poor in creating powerful dialogue that should have helped the plot. Such historical folklore movies are serenaded with the horse of words – proverbs, idioms, and anecdotes

Kunle is known for exploring socio-cultural issues, mythologies, cultural heritages, and folktales with great acting, unique narrative style, sound effects, and music.

Character and Characterisation

The characterisation of Anikulapo scores 50% for the casting. Not bad, not perfect. Some of the actors struggle with the natural accent of the Oyo people. Enough work was not done training the actors in the proper language delivery of their lines. Not even in this age would you find an indigene of Oyo mixing “Yoruba-Eko” with their variant of the Yoruba dialect. Aside from the old, veteran actors who bring the feeling of nostalgia, the rest struggle with the natural accent, mixing the “s” and “sh” sounds. Kunle Remi did well with his role, embodying the persona of a seemingly simple commoner but a greedy mother*cker. He, however, did not do well convincing us as a skilled cloth-weaver. We see samples of what he claims he does and adjusting his machine. Bimbo Ademoye steals the show, no doubt, with her fantastic performance. Her body movement and facial expression. Even when she is not speaking, the first time we meet her character, we already know she is a dissatisfied member of the royal family. Her interpretation of Queen Arolake deserves an AMVCA. She keeps proving herself as one of the best Nollywood has got.

However, the characters do not evolve. Arolake the mischievous queen does not surprise us when she decides to rape. Aro has been a playboy from the setup. One of the major ingredients lacking in most of the potential great movies coming out of our prestigious Nollywood is poor characterization and bad character development. Characters with weak goals, no need, internal conflict, and beliefs.

Cinematography

Manned by Jonathan Kovel, the cinematography of Anikulapo is compelling in a delightful way. With its movement shots, it draws you into each scene and settles with stills once the scene’s conflict is established. The pictures are crisp and super clean. No doubt, Kunle likes the colour yellow, but the tone is further used to depict the epic Africanness of the 17th century

Directorial Prowess/Production Design/Post-production

One of the leading, recallable frames of Anikulapo is when Saro lies face up in his room. Half lit. Part of him bathed in light, the other half bathed in darkness. Though short and subtle, you just get a feeling this guy is shady

Kunle is a master in telling “our own story” as he has shown in his past works; October 1st, Figurine, Citation, Swallow, and others. He is known for distancing himself and his craft from the regular Nollywood story serve-ups. He is known for exploring socio-cultural issues, mythologies, cultural heritages, and folktales with great acting, unique narrative style, sound effects, and music. Anikulapo can boast of the highest assembly of veterans as extras. Even “Ogogo” was cast in a different light, with no lengthy unnecessary lines of dialogue. Similar to what he did with Yomi Fashlanso in Citation.

The production design of Anikulapo scores extremely high, with beautiful set designs, props, and costumes that depict rich African culture and tradition in the pre-colonial era. However, the structures look new, an oversight from the art department.

Lesson Learnt

This movie opens us to the reality of the nature of man, even in his primordial nature. Man will always want more. Man is discontented.

Conclusion

Anikulapo may not have made it to the 95^th Oscars nomination, but it is one of the best movies that has ever come out of Nigeria in terms of compelling cinematography, originality of story ideas, and creative storytelling techniques. As long as Kunle Afolayan who comes from a film dynasty keeps improving his art and not distracted by the necessary promotion and publicity, one day, Nigeria has the hope of being named a recipient of an Oscar. It is a question of “God when?”

Verdict

Anikulapo deserves an 80/100- you are the bomb, be ready for Oscar

Shoots.ng Score Guide

Every Item is 10 marks and 100% in all.

71- 100%= you are the bomb, be ready for Oscar

51-70%= thank you for ‘repping’ quality

31- 50%= you can do better, up your game

11-30%= Return to film school

01- 10%= Filming is not for you, look for another job

Picture credits- Peter Okosun for KAP