The other day, I received a review copy of the movie thriller
based on Nigeria’s Niger Delta crisis, called Blood and Oil. It has since been
aired on the BBC TV and the writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie did a masterful
review of the movie.
I enjoyed Adichie’s review; and would like to offer some
additional thoughts. Ostensibly, this is a drama about the adventures of two
British ladies (one Nigerian-British, acted by Naomie Harris and the other
white, acted by Jodhi May). Jodhi May plays Claire Unwin whose husband gets
kidnapped (with three others) by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger
Delta (MEND).
Naomie Harris as Alice Omuka sets out with Claire to go secure
the release of Mark Unwin and the other kidnapped workers. Something goes
awfully wrong and three of the men (all white) are discovered murdered in the
dangerous creeks of Nigeria’s Niger Delta. The lone black man is missing; I
never quite figured out what happened to the poor fellow. Not that it matters;
he is irrelevant to the movie’s burden.
The movie plods along nicely and predictably. Nigeria is a
scary place, armed guards everywhere. A police state on its way to becoming a
failed one, Nigeria’s leaders have made sick caricatures of its long suffering
people. Western audiences will love this film. Money talks, the producers did
not spare a penny to make this a realistic production with great sound effects.
The boys of the Delta are here, muscles rippling, bullets
drilling into bullies and the bullied. I applaud the actors of Nigerian
ancestry who took part in the movie, even though they sounded and looked liked
expatriates with their accents and all. David Oyelowo was great as the
community activist despite having to deal with mediocre lines engineered to
engage Western audiences.
Adichie’s observations about the movie are astute and spot on.
There is more to this movie than meets the eye. Or less. The accents are fake
except for the occasional eerie chants and voice-overs murmuring Pidgin English
exhortations over the heads of pretend-Nigerians. The movie appears to be
filmed through a very narrow lens, the scenery is controlled, suspiciously
tight-lipped where it should be lush.
You don’t see much else than they want you to see. And it is
for good reason. There is a reason that the scenes and the crowds don’t look
quite like Nigeria. Close-cropped takes mask the fact that this movie was not
shot in West Africa. The scenes are carefully controlled and you almost feel
claustrophobic, looking for the Nigeria you know so well. Jodhi May explains in
an interview:
“We shot it in South Africa and the streets were spick and
span, unbelievably clean, so we had to get dirt put down so as to create an
environment that was Nigerian.” Today, Nigeria is apparently so dangerous that
a movie about her has to be shot in South Africa. If you want to be a Nigerian
go to South Africa! They will employ you there. Our leaders should be shot.
The movie’s competing imperial arrogance and obsequiousness are
fueled by a keen sense that a superior civilisation has run smack into hell as
represented by the Niger Delta and black Africa. Scenes seem engineered to
shine a light on our otherness. White princess meets black beast and shivers
with loathing and fright. Shudder. Horrific scenes showcase alien attitudes
about us that scream “you horrid beasts.” Unfortunately, it is not only white
expatriates that now shudder once they enter African airspace. As the movie
shows so well, we are also raising our children to loathe themselves and
Africa. The fake accents belonged to South Africans and the offspring of
Nigerians schooled abroad – on the oil money of the Niger Delta. Make no
mistake about it. This movie is really all about the death of one white man, a
man whose life is a million times more valuable than all of the miserable lives
in the Niger delta. It is the truth.
I do agree with Adichie that it can’t hurt to watch the movie. It improves
on Bruce Willis’ horrid 2003 movie about Nigeria, Tears of the Sun. However, it
is not a well thought-out documentary on the shame that is playing out in the
Niger Delta. It is formulaic with a very predictable ending and saddled with a
mediocre script. All the ingredients are there but they are muted commentaries
on globalisation, poverty and despair.
Things that have come to define Nigeria are hurriedly captured and abandoned
as if the producers were weary of controversy. What distinguishes this movie
from a fairly well written Nollywood movie is money. We should collaborate
more. Wealth and Creativity, please meet Poverty and Creativity. We would all
be richer for it.
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