A Review of Ezra

An ambitious film by Nigerian director Newton I. Aduaka, Ezra tells the story about children who are violently kidnapped and turned into fighting machines for rebellious militias. In the beginning of the film Ezra is a normal young boy who attends school and has a family. In a flash, his life is forever changed when heavily armed militia members invade the school grounds, killing teachers and the children who are presumably too small to hold firearms. A ferocious looking officer then begins to bark orders to the surviving children whom he’s kidnapped. They are then more or less told that the militia is their new family and that they will have to pledge their loyalty to the cause or else suffer the consequences. These early scenes are horrifying and the audience immediately senses the terrible existence that lies ahead for Ezra and his comrades.

While the film has a very interesting premise, the direction and fluidity of the film are somewhat muddled due to the choppiness of the editing. Most of the scenes are shown in flashback form, so there is a constant jumping to and fro which can periodically be confusing, particularly when there are so many characters of similar type and age. (At times, for example, I found myself confusing Ezra’s wife with his sisters or female comrade.)

Although the pacing and editing in Ezra is as choppy as it was in Namibia: The Struggle for Independence, the performances of the majority of the actors are very good particularly from Mamodou Turay Kamara who is quite good in the title role, and Mariame N’Diaye who plays Ezra’s mute sister, her tongue having been cut out during a militia attack. Both actors bring striking emotion to their roles and N’Dyiaye’s performance is particularly memorable because she is able to convey so much to the audience without using her voice.

Like Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation, Ezra is also capable of reminding one of Wainaina’s “How to Write About Africa”. “An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these…” The movie has plenty of AK-47s and starvation is always right around the corner for the people. (I assume the lack of prominent female characters is the reason we were spared several shots of naked breasts.) “Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved)…” Of course the only love story in the film results in the death of one party, and there certainly aren’t any “ordinary” domestic scenes. “Avoid having the African characters laugh…” Predictably, the characters are much too busy fighting or being miserable to have much time for laughter but there are two or three occasions where a character dares to indulge in such an action. There is also the seen but silent white “bad guy” character who obliges the militia leader by supplying his troops with guns and drugs in an unfair exchange for the far more valuable diamonds.

The movie’s biggest failure is the lack of continuity. As it is sometimes difficult to tell when the characters are in the past and when they are in the present, there is a lack of engagement on the part of the audience. Overall though, I enjoyed the film and appreciated the light it has shed on some of the more appalling aspects of recent Nigerian history.

Review of Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation

Greetings everyone! Last Thursday I was fortunate enough to attend the opening night gala for the Pan African Film Festival where I was able to see a special screening of Namibia: The Struggle for Independence. Knowing very little about African history and even less about the hardships of Namibia I had no idea what to expect from the film, having forgotten the brief synopsis I’d read the day before. However, considering that people such as Isaiah Washington and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had made it a point to clear their schedules in order to attend the crowded screening, I found that my interest had grown by the time the opening titles came on the screen.

Unfortunately, while I enjoyed certain aspects of the film, I found that my interest in the story began to fade sometime after the first hour, and this naturally affected my enjoyment of the movie as a whole since it clocks in at nearly three hours. There is a problem with continuity in the story, and it also seems that the filmmakers have attempted to cram too much factual information into the script, concerning themselves more with educating their audience than with entertaining it. (Of course there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with including lots of facts in a particular kind of film but when the film in question begins to feel more like a lengthy history lesson, it does make one wonder why the filmmakers didn’t opt to make a documentary film instead.) Had there been a bit less about facts and a little more character development, this might have been a more successful film.

The opening shots of the film immediately remind one of Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay “How to Write About Africa”. Wainaina writes, “There is always a big sky. Wide empty spaces and game are critical—Africa is the Land of Wide Empty Spaces.” The film opens with a shot of the teenaged Samuel Nujoma (future first president of Namibia) coming across a group of young boys singing a rebellious song about liberation. The sky features prominently in these early scenes and one gets the sense that Africa is indeed an enormous, wide-open space. The singing children are also herding their game along the seemingly endless stretch of desert sand and the audience is again reminded of the feeling of wide-open spaces, seeing that the children have miles to go before they reach their destination.

The editing of the story seems especially choppy when it comes to the development of Nujoma’s character. The story begins in 1945 when Nujoma is sixteen. The filmmakers then jump back to 1938 to give the audience a sense of what life was like under the oppression of the white South Africans, though this could easily have been done with bit of dialogue. Also, when the story takes a huge leap forward and Nujoma is suddenly a grown-up in the fifties, it is at first difficult to realize that this new actor is playing the same character the audience was introduced to earlier. Not only that but, as the story progresses, the cosmetic effects used to age Nujoma are almost laughably unrealistic to the point where they become distracting. (In all seriousness, the Santa Claus at my local mall probably had a more realistic looking beard than the one given to actor Carl Lumbly.) Given how far the film industry has progressed in terms of makeup and special effects, there is something inexcusable about a production team not being able to age an actor properly.

All of those complaints aside, there is a very satisfying feeling in *finally* seeing the Namibians gain their independence. In fact, the length of the film has a positive effect in that it emotionally drains the audience, giving the viewers a small idea of how exhausting it must have been for the Namibians to achieve their independence. By tiring its audience, the filmmakers are connecting this exhausting frustration to that which was felt by those Namibians who clamored ages for their independence. Had the filmmakers focused their energies on making the characters more defined and understandable, the audience would have had a clearer understanding as to the motivations of characters other than Nujoma, making the story more engaging, and the film more successful as a whole.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Having *just* finished the incredible novel Things Fall Apart, I have to say that I feel all of the prominent characters were interesting and worth writing about. The characters are well-developed and I appreciate how conscious Achebe is in not allowing his characters to become stereotypical. Perhaps the best example of this effort comes from Achebe's character of Mr. Brown.

Here is a white character who is a kind of invader of Africa, being a missionary, yet he still manages to be likable because of his continued efforts to compromise and understand the ways of the people he is trying to influence. For example, by listening to the stories of the villagers rather than rejecting them as Reverend Smith does, Mr. Brown is showing a respectful sensitivity to the traditions of the Umofia tribe. Similarly, by encouraging the villagers to send their children to school, he is showing his respect for the tribe in that a) he thinks they are capable of learning, b) he knows that they will be subservient to those who can read and write, and c) he thinks villagers (like Nwoye) will be able to be capable of teaching their own rather than needing to only be taught by whites. By giving Mr. Brown such good qualities, Achebe is showing that there were white people came to Africa without selfish intentions.