Nigerian filmmakers continue to place vulgar spectacle above any semblance of competent filmmaking. This seems to influence their decision about casting, sound quality, location selection, how scenes are shot and cut, and the development of dialogue … Oh the dialogue. It’s like the writers don’t live and work in the societies they are trying to portray. I’m constantly thinking to myself, “Who in Nigeria talks like this?”
Take the 2022 (loose) remake of Glamour Girls for instance, it had such a strong foundation to build on given that it was based on a much beloved 1994 version. So much was lost in what looked to be a lack of intentionality for seemingly everyone involved in the movie. There were missed opportunities to further immerse the viewer in the scene with silence, rather than the Nigeria top 100 playlist we were forced to listen to instead. A majority of the scenes that involved Sharon Ooja’s Emmanuella shouting should not have been more than five seconds long or cut from the movie altogether. I’ve seen evidence of her ability to ‘act act’ in Oloture. It’s criminal that this movie didn’t allow her to showcase more of that acting growth, talk less about building on it. To top things off, it seemed to me that half the screen time was spent on gratuitous club and yacht scenes rather than taking the time to develop characters’ backstories and their motivations. .
“Take the 2022 (loose) remake of Glamour Girls for instance, it had such a strong foundation to build on given that it was based on a much beloved 1994 version.”
I wasn’t sure if the movie was a comedy or a docudrama. The tone was all over the place, we oscillated from network tv sitcom to gritty drama at dizzying speeds. This left me confused as to what emotions the movie was looking to evoke especially as it explored themes around morality, class, opportunity and greed. Themes that are ever present in the real Nigeria, but were not given the proper duty of care in this movie.
The end of the movie left a lot to be desired. Maybe I need more insight but I’m still confused about who double-crossed whom, and why. Why was there more money than the cabal expected? How does a small group of men control, in discretionary cash, half of the entire (real world) government’s budget? Realistic wealth is another topic we will get into at a later time. Why did the bodyguards double or triple-cross their bosses? What were Zeribe’s motivations? What did Emmanuella’s return actually mean for the greater story?
I had hoped that the trend of remaking old classics would allow filmmakers to build off of already good to great material and put their own modern spin on them – both in terms of content and also the quality of the picture (technology). What tends to happen is that the remakes unfortunately become shrines to Nigerians’ love for extravagance and fail to adequately interrogate and portray the human and societal complexity that is contained in that lovely country of ours – something that would elevate the stories greatly and something that many older Nollywood movies utilized. Our stories, ordinary stories of ordinary Nigerians are important and engaging and hilarious and tragic. Low-hanging fruit that I am hoping movies in the future truly take advantage of.
Anyway, we continue to support and consume while hoping that things continue to improve. Rome was not built in a day, but abeg make we start to dey use proper materials dey build.
Also … Joselyn Dumas dios mio. She can do no wrong.
