Eti Keta
Producer - Saheed Balogun
Cast - Saheed Balogun, Kate Henshaw, Doris Ademinokan, Prince Jide Kosoko and others
Here is a highly
stylized albeit not a highly skillfully made film that speaks to people who are
desperate and think that they can walk outside divine paths. Starring
the irrepressible Saheed Balogun and Africa’s leading actress Kate
Henshaw-Nuttal in lead roles, the movie simply put, revolves round two
brothers--one who heeled abroad in search of greener pasture but who did not
eventually live to enjoy the fruit of his search abroad and the other who in a
desperate move to be comfortable and to pay back monies he had used to sponsor
his elder’s brother trip abroad, joins a robbery gang that was later to be
responsible for the death of his returning blood brother. The movie gets weirder from that
point.
I
have heard people say that Eti Keta
is the best film of Saheed’s career but I don’t entirely agree. I think the
movie merely represents just one of the best in his even career as an actor and
producer. And I say this because I
have seen some of his earlier efforts like Modupe
Temi starring Doris Ademinokan, to know that this movie with its bigger
than life backdrop and equally outsized storyline could have been better
rendered than it is. I will gloss over the ill-conceived idea of using only
Ankara textile as costume for a movie with different periods and settings and
just say that Eti Keta would have
appealed to me if we didn’t have to rummage around cities on per minute basis
for various sub-plots that even if taken out wont affect the main plot. I found
those movements from Ilorin today, Lagos tomorrow and United States the next
day particularly distracting. Besides, the version of the movie I saw at the
National Theatre, begs for serious post-production redemption. If Saheed
intends to exploit festivals with this as I read somewhere, he may have to take
a second look at the sound in some scenes; at lighting which is why there are a
couple of poor visuals and on some of the obvious sync difficulties that litter
the movie. The steady actor must also consider subtitling the multi-lingual
movie so that some of the high points of the movie would not be lost on
moviegoers. Good subtitling too will also make up for some of the slurred lines
of a few of the actors.
But
the movie does its best to be more than just a movie that is intended to
excite. Apart from Saheed’s clever combination of low comedy and high
melodrama, the movie maintained a certain sense of dramatic gravity that helped
to temper its predictability path and limp conclusion. The movies other strength is in Saheed’s
ability to pull the right cast. Kate Henshaw-Nuttal proved her versatility in
the movie with the few flawless words of Yoruba she managed. This will be
Kate’s first major outing in a Yoruba flick and she was roundly on top of her
game. The Efik princess had room to breathe here and she didn’t disappoint at
all. Indeed Kate, Doris Ademinokan and a few of the actors (but certainly not
the white chap and his daughter in the movie) contributed in giving the movie
its acting credits.
Find
this to watch. Nothing in the story is new but it resembles a great adventure
and it appears riveting enough to hold attention. There are also a couple of lovely scenes in the movie. I
particularly like that scene where Saheed appears to his fiancée at the very
end. I also like the scene where the armed robber disappears and appears on a
busy highway in Lagos. There was a deafening applause when that scene played
out in the cinema. But before I forget, how come there was not a single gun
shot hole on the car that was being chased by the police during one of the
final crackdown? Details people. That’s what adds to making a movie more
believable.
No comments:
Post a Comment