I think we have throwback Thursdays or flashback Fridays so we can remind ourselves of how far we have come. The past would pave way for the future through the present, and this is why these three are equally important.
With movies, while we applaud the high-definition cameras, cinematography bright like wedding makeup and acting with the extra expertise, we cannot ignore the films that introduced us to watching Nigerian films in the first place, films like 2003’s Passions.
Passions came around the era where titles were a formality that didn’t require much thought. At the time, love-themed films were the fad, and all that was needed were titles that had adjectives to describe love or words that were similar in meaning to love because Love as a title was already taken.
So we have Passions which really doesn’t have much to do with passion. Instead, it is a story of a girl, Rola, who has cancer and only a few weeks left to live. She decides to live it to the fullest, goes away from home to live on her own and falls helplessly for Frank.
She realises soon enough that Frank is an unhappily married man, but decides she still wants to be with him. Frank, however, distances himself from her to try and resolve his marital issues. She is heartbroken and begins to date Frank’s friend, Toju. But just when he considers marrying her, she dies.
The story, written by Henry Ese Sainyo doesn’t take the viewer anywhere. You would have the director, Tchidi Chikere, go back and forth with this film to elongate it.
A film that ordinarily should not take more than 30 minutes to tell its story then drags for close to two hours because, for some unknown reason, it always has to be a feature-length film.
There’s Rola always asking Frank when she would visit his house, and Frank always arguing with his wife. There’s Rola’s mother always threatening somebody to leave her daughter alone and Eno who leaves, returns, leaves again, then returns.
The story seems to run around, looking for a purpose. It doesn’t, so it decides to waste the viewer’s time. A win in some way, at least.
How does a mother not know the name of her daughter? Florence Onuma, who is cast as Rola’s mother would call her Rhoda, Roller, Rawla at different points in the film. Everyone else seems to know her daughter more than she does.
And of course, she would be all dressed up like an Indian wife in her living room, watching TV on a Saturday afternoon, with heels and makeup complete. This is how she appears throughout the film.
We are not told what kind of cancer Rola has. She holds her stomach as though she has an ulcer, then holds her chest like it’s a heart attack. From time to time, she would gasp, like its asthma calling.
There are no other signs of an already fatal case; no hair loss, no known pain or loss of appetite anywhere, no obvious chemotherapy procedures as the doctors and nurses don’t even look like they know what exactly is wrong with her.
Passions, like many similar Nollywood films, tries hard to appeal to the viewer’s sensibilities by throwing in something religious. It turns out Toju is a church boy who begins to invite Rola to Sunday Service.
When Rola falls ill, he comes to the hospital with a large Bible and says his prayers, and even when she dies, he doesn’t stop. One would expect that the producers see this new angle through, but they don’t, and they end up seeming confused as to why they added it in the first place.
The acting is fair, but quite old school. Richard Mofe-Damijo as Frank gives the characteristic emotion he is known for, but only seems to show his anger by throwing things.
His line, ‘You pushed me into the arms of another woman’ which he says twice as if once was not bad enough, is way too unsettling. Perhaps this was around the time “I can explain” was the best line in a script, because he uses this a lot too.
Stella Damasus is cast as his troublesome wife, Eno, and while her interpretation is good, her character is a little too shallow. Genevieve Nnaji is Rola, and she does good.
Emeka Ike is Toju, and while you cannot but roll your eyes at his ‘Charlie’s Angel’ line and his many other cringe-worthy expressions, he does okay too. It appears what works for this film is the individual talent of the actors. The story, not so much.
Passions clearly has no message. You listen carefully, hoping there is something it is trying to tell you, but in the end it’s all just an incoherent buzz. It neither has a love-conquers-all message or a God-can-do-all-things one. Maybe a death-is-a-part-of-life message, but didn’t we already know that?
The music is mostly upsetting to the ears, as the singer is either off key, or their voice shrill, or the instrumental sounds like a squeezed tape.
Produced by Vitus Nnebue, Passions was important on our journey as an industry, but is one film we should be thankful we have moved past.
25%
This post first appeared on TNS.
No Fields Found.
