The Nollywood Factory in collaboration with OH Films, Presents, Genevieve Nnaji (Teema), Osita Iheme (Mirror Boy), Edward Kagutuzi (Tejan), Fatima Jabbe (Queen), Emma Fletcher (Miss Nugent), Peter Halpin (PC Andrew). Director, Obi Emolonye; Producers, Patrick Campbell/Famata Jabbe; Screenplay, Obi Emolonye; Executive Producer, Akim Salami; Narrator, Frazier James; Director of Photography, Clive Norman; Running Time: 84mim. C2011.
Mirror Boy costs 250,000 Pound Sterling, or a big 339,263.66 United States dollars. Barely over a quarter of a million dollars, and it could barely pass for the life of catering to Hollywood on-the-set production crew. This amount in Nollywood term (Nollywood), is humongous for any executive to come up with, no matter how beautiful the story could be. Shooting film in London or the Western world, in general, can be expensive. You’ll be dealing with actors’ agents, payments for locations and the unions. Thanks to OH Films who happened to have belief in both the writer and director, for footing the bill for Mirror Boy. It proves out to be money well invested.
Mirror Boy, is a story about a young British-born African kid Tejan (Edward Kagutuzi), who is abruptly hauled for no good reason, by his mother, Teema (Genevieve Nnaji), from the country and comfort of his birthplace to visit the Gambia. Upon arrival in the Gambia, a mysterious spiritual messenger, Mirror Boy (Osita Iheme), awaits Tejan to take him on a journey to his ancestors. In the hands of the spirit, Mirror Boy, Teema loses Tejan. Mirror Boy by his charm and playfulness commandeered Tejan through forest and mangrove, but the British-born African soon gets wary and rebel against the mysterious spirit and walks away.
In the Savanna wilderness, thirsty and tired, Tejan is saved by a native girl, who brings him to her Mallam father’s compound. When the father gets to know that Tejan is the boy on tv who’s mother is offering 200,000 dollars for his discovery, he hurried into his gown, drags his daughter with him to the city, securing Tejan in a dry-out well. Upon the Mallam’s return in the company of Teema and the Immigration Officer, to claim his reward and handover Tejan to them, Mirror Boy has come and took away Tejan, until he reaches with him to his ancestors.
Meanwhile, Teema gets information that her son, in the company of a mysterious man is making his way to the village where his father hails. Teema and the Officer rush there, to the town. Here, we learn that Tejan’s father is the late king whose funeral arrangement is ongoing. The King’s brother and the Queen (Fatima Jabbe) in a conspiracy, murder him. The story ends by Tejan claiming the throne of his father, the dead King, and both his uncle and the Queen disappear in a bolt of lightning, and ominous birds of death flutter high above the cotton-tree in their wake.
Obi bases his story on a journey Tejan unwittingly takes to join his ancestors in Africa, but the trip is instigated and guided by the spirit of his dead father, who couldn’t rest in perpetual peace until his son he had had abroad joins him, and takes over the throne. He, therefore, sent an emissary of his young age as a spirit, to communicate physically with Tejan. Here in this story, Obi is talking about a man and his fate-predestination: Mirror Boy, “Are you ready for the journey? Tejan you have no choice, this is your destiny (destination). No matter how fast a dog runs, it can never outrun its tail (fate). An empty throne awaits the young king, Tejan to inherit. Upon his arrival in the Kingdom, both his uncle and Step-mother, Queen, perish when a bolt of lightning strikes them.
The first time I took notice of Obi Emolonye and his literary work was when I reviewed Last Flight to Abuja. I was impressed by the use of the available technology, for instance, special effects, in the landing of the flight in the cornfield near Ilorin airport and the torching, and the inferno as the plane engulfs in a blaze. He uses the limited expertise in Nollywood to come up with a clean Hollywood type presentation. For the first time, I cudgeled my brain as to the available Nollywood stock of technical expertise, and the price tag of Last Flight to Abuja production. Nollywood productions hardly ever quote the cost of productions and that has always been my curiosity. The secrecy has its advantages and disadvantages as well, but I’m thankful for letting the producer bring to the public the production tag for Mirror Boy.
Obi Emolonye has the gist, the stamina and a production style all his own. It doesn’t mean that Obi is emulating Hollywood, no, not at all. If I could put this into a lay man’s term, he struggles to marry the subject matter of the story (African story), to the subject treatment of the film. The journey of Teema and her son from England to Banjul I can interpret as the unwitting answer to the call of the ancestral spirit. Tejan beats Rodney and the police visit Teema over the issue, leading her to leave England with the boy, at least briefly, but abruptly. And Tejan and Mirror Boy’s traversing of the Gambian forest and mangrove, barely escaping devils and goblins until he reaches his fatherland is a story in the class of Arabian Nights. Here in Mirror Boy, the mirror is our talisman.
I have to follow Obi Emolonye in a series of interviews he has sat for and though not entirely, but I’m starting to form a sort of theory of his creative mind and film art. In Last Flight to Abuja, he puts us on the fateful Flamingo flight 212 (journey), I was securely tucked in my couch but was there with them on that fight, destined (predestination) for Abuja. I have been on such a flight before, and that was in the Arthur Hailey’s Airport. All of us on board are looking forward to an evening of fun, treats, and promises in Abuja, but the journey ends in a cornfield in an inferno. All aboard are rushed to safety except Adesola who comes face to face with his fate: “Our willingness to accept our fate sometimes outweighs our determination to live.” Is Obi telling us in this 2012 allegorical satire, in Shakespearean dictum, that life is a journey and has an end by whichever way?
Obi started his philosophical quest for life’s journey and destination when he produced Mirror Boy, in 2011. Tejan and his mother Teema, board the plane to Banjul, set on a journey, just the way the cross-section of passengers on Flamingo Flight 212 board that Friday afternoon. All passengers on the trip on both flights, not particularly Tejan and Teema who hardly have a clue for boarding the plane to Banjul, are hopeful for a brighter and fun-filled weekend. We can draw a parallel of the lives of these passengers on the two flights to the lives of humans roaming this earth, not having a clue as to what befalls them ahead (Fate).
Obi uses some conflicts in the story only discernible to the critical eye. He uses Teema (Genevieve Nnaji), old relationship to the throne, against the Queen (Fatima Jabbe) the new; the beautiful parks of England, the Supermarket, against the market in Banjul and the mosquito-infested environment in Tejan’s room. Tejan’s uncle’s against the presence of the young, rightful heir, Tejan. Since most films have several lines of stories, and almost all vying for the attention of the viewers, Obi made it a choice not to lose track of the most critical element here. And that is to bring Tejan home to take over the Kingdom and cleverly does so, by intricately weaving in different less related plots.
Now I know that the almost half a million dollars that go into spending for the production of Mirror Boy, is a money well spent.