Director Emeka H. Umeasor, takes  a close and personal look at Sins of Rachael. You can find it so in the composition of the shots as they interpret on screen.  The  excessive use of extreme close-ups, and medium close-ups bring even viewers closer to the events and characters on screen. Beautiful shots befitting beautiful story.

Screenwriter Andy Nwakalor weaves a beautiful drama here too for our viewing pleasure. He tells the story of Rachael (Joy Torty), a fountainhead character and a straight faced born-again christian believer, whose father, Chief Nnaji (Jim Lawson Madweke) for his own political ambitions, wants her marry Christopher (Akume Akume). Rachael in turn is in love with a choir boy Sunday (Mike Ezuruonye), from her church. Yet, in obedience to the word of the bible, as thus, “obey thy father’, she asks her suitor Christopher if he could find a place in his heart for Christ in exchange for politics.

Christopher is a born, bred, groomed, nurtured, tutored, carved, and schooled politician (a politician with manaical disposition, though) finds Rachael’s ultimatum impossible. His father could even skin him alive for joining the church. Both Sunday and Christopher jostle for Rachael’s hand in marriage anyway, until Rachael on her way from church choir practice, is raped by Steve (Emeka Ike, the devil worshipper who brutally murders his mother in the Warriors of Satan) and conceives thereon. The story goes into turbo gear.

The household of Chief Nnaji is in disarray by this incident. Rachael’s pregnancy will sure ruin his politics and therefore wants abortion, or she and her mother should leave his household. Both Christopher and Sunday go ballistic in their different ways: Christopher couldn’t stand the thought of that THING  in  Rachael’s stomach. Sunday calls Rachael’s unborn child, ‘bastard’, and doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. Rachael in the middle of this rigmarole, is playing it by the will of God, but no abortion. Her Character, except for frequent outburst in cries, is completely flat and anti-radioactive.

The drama takes yet another turn when Rachael runs into her raper, Steve, and confronts him with the truth. Rachael wants confession and acceptance of God for his evils, so she can forgive him. Steve easily accepts Christ alright, but before Rachael could have his child, Christopher murders him. At his bedside, Rachael witnesses Chief Nnaji (her father) accepts Christ. Christopher enters the same scene, a giant-size cross like a burden of sin, hanging on his neck, obviously a born again christian. Sunday repents and marries Rachael after she put to bed her fatherless baby girl.

The biblical Rachael’s sin, if it could be so called, is when she steals her father Leban’s god as she escapes with her husband Jacob, into Israel. But Andy Nwakalor’s Sins of Rachael cries out loud two philosophical thoughts: Good versus evil. Spiritualism versus existentialism. This script is the writer’s uneqivocal take on Nollywood’s obsession with both political and financial aggrandizement, in disregard for fear of God as Rachael portrays.

This side of the Atlantic (America) we call Sins of Rachael, a beautiful testament to Rowe versus Wade (pro-life versus Pro-choice). Simply put.

Ali Baylay/Publisher

My Story is a hybrid form of Fatal Attraction. Vickey, a married woman, introduces Stanley to her elegant pad like a lion lures a prey to his den. Once in the den she eventually succeeds in seducing him with a kiss (I nominate this kiss as Nollywood’s on screen kiss of the year) and Stanley’s innocence is deflowered. He has eaten of the apple and like Adam, before us, is left corrupted. His entire world revolves around this married woman.

Vickey’s shrewd manipulation of Stanley to kill the old hag of her husband makes Stanley an accessory to murder. Having killed her husband and now left with a young and restless boyfriend who can’t get enough of her loving, she becomes disdainful of him and decides to poison Stanley. Seeing the lead man from Beyonce on the floor, spilling blood and painfully dying, makes My Story Part 1 a pure Greek tragedy.

“It lies not in our power to love or to hate for the will in us is overruled by fate,” Christopher Marlowe says in one of his poems. This statement is appropriate for Stanley (Van Vicker, The President’s Daughter, American Boy) as we see him enthralled by the beauty of Vickey like a deer caught in the glare of headlights. The seduction of Stanley by Vickey (Omotola Jalade-Ekehinde) is too overpowering. In the opening scenes in Vickey’s bedroom, Stanley, is completely helpless in the face of the formidable beauty of Vickey. In Beyonce, he lusts, but in My Story, he personifies the fate of Adam. Stanley’s falling in love with Vickey and his ultimate death by poison is the work of fate.

“Whoever loved that loved not at first sight,” Marlowe says at length. The phallic desire in people for another person is uncontrollable, mysterious and inexplicable. It violates logic. Why Stanley should fall in love with a married woman is everybody’s wonder and to finish a murder she initiates exceeds my comprehension.

The moral of this well rounded Part 1 of My Story is that, first, there is no second guessing falling in love, for people always do so at first sight; and second, whatever comes out of a relationship is predestined. Well, the theme of My Story is universal based on the premise-freewill, fate, and predestination. My Story is a human story Nollywood should be telling more on the screen.

Ali Baylay/Publisher.

POPULAR gospel film company, The Mount Zion Film Ministry, has released another block buster entitled The Broken Pitcher.

The movie is a joint-production of both The Mount Zion Film Productions, Nigeria, and The Northward Film Productions of Redeemed Christian Church of God, Household of Faith, Arlington, Texas. It was a result of a two-week church drama training course held for the church drama team by Evangelist Mike and Gloria Bamiloye of The Mount Zion Institute of Christian Drama in July 2007. The Broken Pitcher was written by Evang. Mike Bamiloye and the Executive Producer is Pastor Ebenezer Ropo-Tusin of the Household of Faith, Arlington, Texas.  The film was partly shot in Nigeria and mainly shot in Arlington, Texas, USA.

It has a universal message for everyone outside their country; for the Africans in diaspora and for the Christians worldwide who find themselves outside  their countries. The Broken Pitcher is the story of a Christian couple (Mike Bamiloye and Meg Anenih) who relocate to the USA with the help of God and a strong vow to serve Him and fulfill all His purposes when they get to the foreign land. Their prayers are answered and as soon as they get to the USA, but they soon forget their promises and vows and things begin to happen to them which they never expected.

The husband gets enticed and enslaved by a strange fellow and the wife gets enmeshed in a strange relationship. Their daughter, too, gets captured by the strange wind of the land and their lives begin to veer towards disruption. The movie features Mike Bamiloye, Margaret Anenih, Wunmi Awotoye, Gloria Bamiloye, Gbenga Awotoye, Michael Cole and others.

David Ajiboye/staff writer.