BENEATH sheer
adulations, the excitement and vaunted theme of new repute; Kunle Afolayan’s
October 1 is a shrill call for reparations. The clarion motif is, in itself,
sketched from the earth of The Killer – that innately troubled ‘Agara’ who,
before a country’s independence, ‘must be smoked out’, lest a vibrant Akote be
shrivelled by fear and distrust. While it should be applauded, the ability of
Kunle to merge history with entertainment yet steering away from hyperbolic
overtones; the Nigerian mind, imbued with the surviving story – the single
story – of an all-chaste road to Independence, therefore, finds a rather curious
melody around this film noir.
It sets the butt on
edge. Curious Melody? One of the bucolic undergrowth? Of the murders of young
virgins? Or of collective anticipation of national triumph? Perhaps, Inspector
Danladi Waziri, who is the nut wedged in the mesh of events, is solely in tune.
Although, all of these landscapes create an intense story devoid of speed,
triteness and stereotypes; the extenuation of colonial scars and its seal in
time is a big part of October 1.
The title works as
the movie's sub-plots – impeccably disparate – proceed evenly and gather momentum to
birth sudden realizations. Every corner in the movie is prone to suddenness;
the turbulent cusp of independence, the encounter with dead bodies, the
departure for greener pastures aboard, a town’s part turning against the whole,
a desperate propitiation, a prince’s guile. Before Independence Day, a
detective is charged with solving a serial-murder crime in far far away Akote.
The suddenness in his discovery is the very tremor that rocks the scene and
from that probing stretch of days, that preceding space of truth – that is,
October Zero – the Curious Melody rings back in time.
In that Melody is a
definition for the essence of ‘October 1’ as an abstract property of the
Nigerian mind; and it is easy to assume that this voice of contention is
directly that of the scriptwriter. Anyway, the voice is a recurring one and,
more importantly, bugles the need for national reflection and restitution of
lost ideals – the lost mores, the lost industries and the lost spirit of Africa
since the white men came.
Among the ebb and
tide of action and suspense, The Killer is the reagent. Yet, he, too, is lost,
lost like his country, his people who have, for long, witnessed the oppressive
lethargy of choicelessness. Although he is ‘deranged, devoid of human
compassion’, he ‘struggles with a deep-seated inner crisis’. The complexity of
this individual insurgency makes a case for the very nature of the State, that
is, Nigeria.
In fact, the import
of the entire movie is an aesthetic conversation between dual orbits – one of
The Killer and of The Country. To hear the dialogue, one only has to trace each
interlocutor on the divide between aspirations and transitions; and once this
is done, one has to heed the Melody that comes echoing, stirred by bitter
truths. One has to heed anguish, heed the innocence of pain, of a promising
Nigerian boy seeking education yet led to the dark pit of violation, or, even
more precariously, a promising Nigeria seeking independence yet led to its own
battlefield.
The substance of The
Killer is not rationed solely by local connotation. Indeed, it raises a
question of universal appeal, one that transcends Nigeria’s Akote to probe the
nature of human and national development on deterministic scales. For Nigeria, it is this: ‘When did
independence begin or, as in yet another rendering, did it ever start?’ To
co-opt a perpetual variance of Prince Aderopo’s prediction: ‘Are we at war with
ourselves?’
The answer is also a
property of the Nigerian mind, as is the question. However, in some shades
beneath a thriller’s gusto, Kunle Afolayan succeeds in animating the ideals of
a hopeful Nigerian nation, ideals such as unity, freedom and democracy. He does
this by defying stereotypes; and, once for a dare, a country’s story is
resolutely about its ordinary people than the cream of the crop. It is why I
have refused to resent the silence of the character of Mrs. Olufunmi Ransome Kuti
or the choice of a lettered Northerner as detective or the funeral rites of
respect for a young Ibo girl (Chidinma) on Yoruba earth or – stressing this –
the poising of Religion on a delicate axis, one that has, according
to Wole Soyinka, proved it again and again a spur, a motivator and a
justification for the commission of some of the most horrifying crimes against
Humanity, despite its fervent affirmations of peace.
The presence of all
of this calls for emulation, for an opening of the mind to the grave realities
of nationhood that has undergone a grave history – an October Zero – a space of time from where it all
started.
‘And there is no
limit to how that mind can open!’ Kunle’s film shouts.
First published in Image Magazine of the University of Ibadan.
Photo credit: Kunle Afolayan
