Comment: “My Father’s Shadow” by Akinola Davies Jr.

Akinola Davies Jr.’s powerful work on memory and political vulnerability My father’s shadow It is the first debut of the amazing semi-autobiographical feature. During the 1993 Nigerian election, when military dictator Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida overturned the adverse outcome, the story unfolded through the eyes of two younger brothers and followed them on a day trip to Lagos with their estranged father, their interactions they watched and absorbed them.

Davies Jr. When their father Folarin (Sopé Dìrísù) unexpectedly arrived and showed up one afternoon, indoors like Phantom, their surprise was not because of meeting someone they didn’t expect, but people they never thought they would see again. Davies Jr. felt from the beginning that the filmmaker could understand himself better.

Foralin bluntly scolds the boys and drags them to the city to collect the money he owes, during which he shows them a fun time and catches up with old friends and political comrades (who both affectionately call each other Kapo). They even met some amazing relatives along the way, and they were surprised to see Folarin for so long. Without clear gestures, the movie becomes a variety of ghost stories. Folarin may still be alive and well in the literal plot, but Davies Jr.

Photographer Jermaine Edwards My father’s shadow Entering the souvenirs of the past, bringing life into the city’s rhythmic tapestries. Sometimes something in the film’s fabric seems to slip off, as if a screener stripped the film aside to insert a frame of some scattered (and damaged) flashing flashbacks, and Folarin seemed to “see” in his moment. With news of political atrocities on television and radio, Foralin and his children’s trips (surrounded by armed guards) became not only a visit to the crowded Lagos market, but also a 1993 exploration from an all-knowing future Vantage visit, as if Davies Jr.

This premonition woven throughout the structure of the film is offset by childish simplicity. Throughout the visit, Akin and Remi tried to reconcile their father’s love with his regular absence, a situation that went far beyond their understanding that it would lead to tantrums. However, despite the story being told through the teenage eyes, the camera is still bound to Dilisu’s introspective conflict without cutting it off, always feeling a satisfying answer. Whether in 1993 and today, Foralin or Davies Jr. is still an open wound, but observing his version of the film (between his elements and friends and acquaintances) is perhaps the closest filmmaker to the filmmaker to really get to know him.

If the film’s approach is flawed, it’s just in the way international audiences pack it. There is a Florida naturalism in the dialogue that switches between English and Yoruba, but the former (a lang-language Nigerian pidgin) is usually played in a Westernized dialogue, robbing its flavor. Phrases like “no vex” become “don’t get angry” while longer statements are too simple. Gossip Exchange “just recovered last week. Being reduced to more clinical and formal, “I personally just recovered last week. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Chioma having twins in January? ”In the lower third.

While the whole process will happen, it is not a spoiler anyway, but My father’s shadow Especially the first movie to enter the most prestigious stage of the world cinema: the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival. This shows the fact that international distribution still needs to catch up with how language rigidity hinders artistic expression. These Western subtitle standards conflict with the film’s keen observation of realism, and the more accurate, more colorful alternative could have been understood as a window of Davies Jr. Jr.’s recollection.

Still, given its vivid dramatic performance, the keen eyes and ears may all absorb the film. From a gentle introduction to a shocking final scene, it’s a lifelike anti-climax that makes more spiritual than logic –My father’s shadow It is both a retrospective reconstruction and a soul-filled reconstruction that breathes life into the past and pragmatic details that make one’s complexity (even those who are fully present in memory) while the past.

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