By Ali Baylay

Cast: Van Vicker, Chika Ike, Desmond Elliot, Tonto Dikeh. Screeenplay: Chidi Chijioke. Director: Ikechukwu Onyeke. Sky Movies Ltd.

“They are from decent christian families aspiring to be university graduates but after admission, they find out that it is not all rosy.” that’s how the sales pitch at the back of the scabbard of the dvd of  Before the Rain goes. While intensely watching this flick of university kids with my twelve years old daughter, she made a remarkable observation that would have totally escaped my critical viewing eye: “Daddy, your African university campuses look overgrowth and shuddy,” she complained. In most cases, I stood in defence of our age old Africa, and blame it on the bias of western media, but this time I was cornered.

There in front of me on the screen, in a major Nollywood production, the principal location of a story of university students on the campus of Namdi Azikwe University, are overgrowth and unkept fields, squalid environment, classrooms with  ricketty desks that don’t measure up to a primary school in today Africa. If  the right location adds up to the beauty and believability of a movie, Before the Rain’s location doesn’t pass.

That brings us to the story itself. Before the Rain is supposedly a story of Mercy (Tonto Dikeh) and Anita (Chika Ike-she would have been smashing without the fake thick eyelid which did not march the color of her eyebrow). Both leave home in a beat-up old car, evident of a poor background, on a trip to stay on a university campus. On campus, Anita and Fabian (van Vicker) soon fall out when he discovers that Anita has similar disease his one time girl had. Mercy has a series of run-ins with the Social Lady of the campus and at one point her gang  jump her and trash her (No campus securities?). Mercy absconds from campus and comes back a different butt-kicking no-nonsense gangtser, who can have Anita’s boyfriends at will. Motive, your guess is good as mine.

Anita cries a lot in this film, but in the end laughs the last laugh, when Raymond (Desmond Elliot), who had saved her life once by taking her to the hospital and both  fall in love later, brings his father to ask Anita’s hand in marriage. Like they say in screenwriting classes, if you can’t get much out of a character, kill it. Mercy ends up going to jail, and society lady ends up on the floor of her pad, dead with a bullet wound to her forehead. Before the Rain is more about Anita, hence she survives  the campus chaos around her unscathed.

Before the Rain falls, there is thunder, a distant murmur followed by a sparkle of lightning in the sky, the tropical cloud gathers hurriedly, there’s paleness everywhere, the chicks hurry to their coops, marketters gather their wares. And the rain comes and it pours. Was there rain in Before the Rain? I guess not, for the parts of this film do not come together. There’s no rhythm established so that there could be form, shape and climax building up tension and exploding it.

• By Ali Baylay

Strength of Faith: Producer: Sunshine Movies Limited, Director: Ikechukwa Onyeka. Cast: Van Vicker, Uche Jombo, Tonto Dikeh.

Strength to Strength: Producer: Solomon Apete, Director: Ugezu J. Ugezu, Prod. Mgm: Ifeanyi Udoku, Exec. Prod: Ezenwa Collins Chinedu. Cast: Patience Ozorkwo, Mike Ezuruonye, Mercy Johnson, Tonto Dike.

I do not know how these two identical title of movies ended up on my desk but for some reason they were there, and I kept looking away because the titles in themselves are not eye catching or meaningful. However, I got curious at one point, and my critical mind forced me to watch them, simultaneously.

One thing about Strength of Faith and Strength to Strength production processes don’t sit well with me. I don’t know about you, but for me  the titles are too close for comfort. I can’t imagine two seperate productions would have so close a title and so close a theme. It seems Nollywood is running short of story ideas and titles.

If I could work up some similarity traits between the two movies, both are produced in 2008 and marketed in America. Strength of Faith, by Black Star Entertainment , 3832 White Plains Road, Bronx, New York 10467; Strength to Strength, by Executive Image African Movies, 2811 White Plains Road, Bronx, New York 10467. Both these companies live next door to each other.

The casts are either compromised or borrowed from one set to another. The notorious mother-in-law of Nick ( Mike Ezuruonye) in Strength to Strength, commonly known in the film as Nick’s mom (Camilla Mgbrekpe), is also Mama(Camela Mberekpe)  who plays the evil mother of Van Vicker in Strength of Faith. Then enters Tonto Dike, (Chekwube) in Strength of Faith, and (Angela) in Strength to Strength, and in both films she plays the tragic character who ends dead before the end credits roll. Oh, one more thing about these two flicks that stand out as similar is, they both explore marriage themes in reference to in-laws: The aggrandizing mother (Patience Ozokwor) of Jane (Mercy Johnson) in (Strength to Strength) who would like to sell Jane to the highest bidder, versus Nick’s Mom (Camilla Mgbereka) who could stop at nothing but to get her son a woman who would give her a grandchild. In Stregth of Faith, the mother-in-law bewitches Chekwube for the mere heck of the fact that she hates her.

The only difference found between the two movies is that while one explores (Strength to Strength), the biblical plot of Jacob marrying Rachel and her sister Leah, but deviates and takes on a plot curve from there, ending the story with the death of the younger sister, Angela (Tonto Dike) in labor; In  the use of  of in the title of Strength of Faith, I find a difference, and poetic justice in the story: Devil worshipping works, as equally as belief in the holy ghost’s fire depending on the strength of faith like we find in both factions responsible for the death of Chekwube (Tonto Dike) and Mama (Camela Mberekpe), respectively.

The reason why Hollywood uses working titles during production of a movie is, by the time of premier their movie must have been christened a title unique to it and to it alone. In today’s age of  google keywording, your movie with a similar title to the production next door,  in the same market, can easily get lost in the laybrinth. Are we getting short of titles in Nollywood?

By Ali Baylay

It’s Mercy Johnson again! This time she’s a three-dimensional character in a convoluted story. She plays Miss Rose, a straight-jacketed English maid who has a lesbian affair with the lady of the house; then she sleeps with the husband of the house and tops it off by sleeping with the house cook in her quarters. Corporate Maid explores comedy, tragedy and lesbianism.

In this African film, the whining wife of Chris (Van Vicker) is never satisfied with the services of the maids in their marble-laden mansion. To train her maids to be staff of her dreams, she hires a trainer (Miss Rose) to get her three maids into shape. The training starts well enough as soon as Miss Rose joins the household.

It is a hilarious ride from the moment the film fades in. Then comes news of the Chris’s death in a plane crash and the comedy comes to an abrupt end. Chris’s parents intend to claim the property and his wife hurries to take charge of his papers before they beat her to it.  Miss Rose gets in the mix with a lesbian affair with her boss lady, as she consoles her in her demise.  But when the husband reappears Miss Rose lures him into bed too, and finally ends the sexual escapades in the guest room with the house cook (Charles Unoji). She escapes the mansion in shame and the movie ends.

Corporate Maid crashes as a comedy when news of Chris’s imminent plane crash reaches the household. The crash incident in the story completely reroutes this comic story into exploring lesbianism in African films. The comic stunts of Charles Inoji captivate the viewer taking us on that ride into the kingdom where we temporarily put away our worries, then boom! Tragedy strikes and it’s not even a comic type. No film captures viewers by dropping tragedy into the middle of a comedy. Especially when the tragedy occurs to their beloved star Van Vicker.

To expect the African viewer, your target audience base, to view lesbianism on screen and at the same time laugh about it is unrealistic. On first viewing it, they will likely revolt. To most it’s an abomination! In the middle of the film, I expect they would take a bathroom break or simply stop watching. The comedy is out the door, replaced by a serious social debate: lesbianism versus our African sexual tolerance.

Corporate Maid starts out as a farce with hearty laughable scenes but goes on to explore uncharted social waters that could as well be Modern African Cultural Studies 101. Better yet, let’s call this flick Desperate Maid.