By Ali Baylay

The Untold Truth explores a family situation we all have either witnessed or have been part of. I witnessed such situation growing up in my home town: A rich and powerful man in my quarter had an only girl in all girls dormitory, but she had the habit of stealing anything from her fellow girls: panties, shoes, dresses or anything she lays her hands on in seclusion, and she did this just for the heck of it. My neighbor’s girl continued this habit  and was eventually expelled from the all girls school and thus brought home shame to her parents. In a parallel circumstance as in The Untold Story, the rich man’s sister who couldn’t bear an issue of her own was blamed for the unfortunate situation.

Samuel Okafor’s production of The Untold Truth is a story of parental dilemma and shame. Chief Okenwa’s (Kofi Adjorlolo) son suddenly arrives in a cab from Canada with not a single luggage. Though this manner of arrival doesn’t sit well with either the mother, Lolo (Patience Ozokwo) or the sister, Nkiru (Mercy Johnson) the family swallow it all and sit down and wait until the thieving habits of Peter (Francis Duru) begins to surface.

From then on, Peter’s thieving habits becomes frequent and so the family continue to be embarrassed. He steals the jeans of a brother of a girl he wants to marry, steals the cellphone of his sister’s boyfriend, and shoplifts a store when he’s in the company of his sister. Meanwhile, the churches are been consulted and each gives their opinion and help to wade this curse, and yet, Peter’s thieving habit persists, to the utter embarrassment of all in the family even to the point of himself breaking up when he steals his sister’s boyfriend’s cellphone. By contrivance, the priest points the brother of the chief to be the perpetrator of the curse, as he showers him in the blessed pool.

The line up of actors and their acting make this story a memorable one. Kofi Adjorolo’s character in this heavy drama is one of a father who abandons his household affair in return for politics. Patience Ozokwo has never been so caring in a household as in this film. Mercy Johnson’s acting weaves  the fragile plots of the movie together to make it all the more memorable. Francis Duru’s character carries the burden of this film to the finish line and he does a good job at it.

If the essence of the story as was envisioned by the writer could be what I felt after watching this film, then he really got me. The movie left  me reeling with  pain, shame, sadness and despair for Francis Duru’s character. It evokes a paranoid state of mind of Peter, which shows in his disjointed deliveries, his uncertain gaze, and his sluggish gait. The film could be classified as a painful and depressing experience, that leaves one cold and tired,  especially for the parent sensing either his son or daughter caught  in such a low life behavior.

In considering the manner in which part two of the film ends, the writer didn’t do Peter justice by living him unchanged, and my soft heart follows such memorable character and acting eternally. Well, not every movie has to be  fun, or ends with, ‘happily ever after.’

By David Ajiboye. Photos by Niyi Tabiti.

Mercy Johnson celebrates with Uche Jombo.

Nollywood’s star actress and Best Actress of 2008 (Afrohollywood Award, London), Uche Jombo, was a year older on 28 December, but she chose to celebrate the day on Friday the 2nd of January 2009 at Club Papas in Victoria Island, Lagos with colleagues and well wishers.

It was all fun as Uche welcomed guests with smiles and the party lasted until the early morning hours of Saturday, January 3rd 2009.

Happy birthday Uche!

Party guest celebrates with Uche.

Ramsey Nouah, friends, and Uche at the party.

Guests dance the night away at Uche Jombo's birthday bash.

By Ali Baylay

The second major location in Area Mama (De-Kross Movies) introduces the viewer to an ill-clad wife, Adanne (Mercy Johnson), as she sits in a barren living room feeding her son with garri when her husband drunkenly staggers into the room and jumps on her in a fight. The abuse continues until Adanne bloodies the husband’s forehead before escaping with her son from the scene. At her aunt’s home, Celia, her globe-trotting drug courier cousin who doesn’t believe in “stupid marriages” and thinks “a woman’s life is not all about marriage,” volunteers to take Adanne to the city. In Lagos, she hands Adanne over to Mama Gee who manages a household of Ashawos (prostitutes). What Adanne is about to find out is that “In Lagos every dog eats shit” as Celia will later tell her.

A producer means business when he casts two top billing actresses, Eucharia Anunobi (UK) and Mercy Johnson, and crowns them up with Patience Ozukwor. I mean Mama Gee, the mother of Nollywood films. The trio can set any screen afire and they manage to pull off one poorly written screenplay in Area Mama.

An unguarded women’s liberation this story is, though. Adanne runs from an abusive marriage in exchange for running the streets of Lagos, even to the point of sleeping with men whose “concern for a prostitute is the action and not any emotional problem”; Celia (Eucharia Anunobi) condemns marriage but traffics drugs from one continent to another while she keeps a gigolo in her bed; and Mama Gee (Patience Ozukwor) runs a brothel and finances a younger man as she sits in loneliness and drinks her life away. One must assume there is something missing in the lives of these so-called liberated women.

Mercy Johnson, who made her screen debut in Kenneth Nnobue’s The Maid , recently interviewed for the AfricanMovieStar.com, denied sleeping with the top brass in Nollywood, but in Area Mama she learns fast at playing an excellent hooker. However, the poor screenplay couldn’t allow the Igbira babe to give a stellar performance.

Area Mama is a story with universal lessons: One can never run away from the truth as evidenced in the personal experience of Adanne. She escapes an abusive husband but ends up in brothel servicing an abusive patron. Second, money can’t bring happiness as Celia with all the fleet of cars and the mansion would come to find out that while she’s away slugging it out like a man and trafficking drugs between continents, the gigolo she leaves at home entertains prostitutes in her bed – monkey wok baboon eats. Lastly, the irony of Mama Gee stuffing her little cache with Naira made off of a stable of innocent girls, a table in front of her full of imported liquor, and drinking herself to death does not spell happiness. The first time Mama Gee appears in this movie, she’s alone and she ends up alone at the end of the story.

Area Mama isn’t a redemption song for the African woman nor is it an advise for the woman in abusive marriage. To an extent, it tells the viewer the level Adanne falls from grace by following the footpath of Mama Gee and Celia; that running a brothel, no matter how lucrative, can be a lonely one. And the fleet of cars and a mansion bought with drug money buys Celia fake friends.