KAP Motion Picture, Golden Effects present Kunle Remi (Saro), Sola Sobowale (Awarun), Taiwo Hassan (Alaafin Ademi), Yinka Quadri (Ojumo Hunter), Oga Bello (Oyo Chief), Eyiyemi Afolayan (Omowunmi), Adebowale Adedayo (Akanji), Bimbo Ademoye (Arolake), Kareem Adepoju (Ojumo Chief)Addeja Adeyemi (Princess Ajoke), Eyeyemi Afolayan (Princess Omowunmi), Kunle Afolayan (Akano), Toyin Afolayan (Oyo Chief). Screenwriter, Adewale Adewunmi; Director, Kunle Afolayan; Cinematography, Jonathan Kovel; Producers, Segun Akintunde, Seun Soyinka. Executive Producer, Kunle Afolayan. © 2022
I have reviewed over five or six of Kunle Afolayan’s Golden Effects releases. I watched and reviewed, The Figurine (2009), Ayinla (2012), and October 1 (2014). Mukalik (2019), Citation (2020), Swallow (2021). They are all remarkable and meet the standard of features and modern Nollywood and worldwide standards. Mukalik, a passage of child to manhood. The Figurine is about innocence–not knowing anything about the Yoruba culture–NYU youths stumbling and disregarding goddess Araromire. They meet their fates accordingly.
I won’t tell any lies. All these movies, especially Citation, enthralled me. Citation movie is about institutional rape most teachers and professors commit behind the hallow walls, against helpless and hapless college and secondary goers, girls for one. Anyila impresses me as a movie about a stubborn upcoming and unmanageable entertainment star. Swallow deflated me as a tragedy among young African girls who want to make it in life, hook or crook.
Anikulapo is a tragic character who can’t help himself from being who he is. It starts with a prologue. As the film opens, we see Saro’s (Kunle Remi) bloodied, mangled, lifeless body lying on the ground in the middle of nowhere. A giant crow-like bird (Alaka) with an enormous beak, not even in a dream have I seen such a bird, comes hovering over him, breathes life into him, and flies back out, leaving a talisman (pouch) that had brought Saro to life. With that talisman, Kunle Afolayan creates the most tragic Nollywood character to bear. Of course, the incident leading to Saro’s bludgeoned body and being left dead on the road is the middle of the story. A climax?
As a wanderer from Gbogan, Saro (Kunle Remi) is an Aso-ofi-weaver by trade and profession. He ends up in a village called Oyoili. By the goodwill of her heart, Awarun (Sola Sobowale), an Oyo women’s leader, briefly interrogates Saro. She gratuitously provides the young man an abode, imploring him to stay in the village and do his weaving craft. Soon Saro becomes the gossip of the best weaver in the town, and all the King’s wives and children flock to him to weave them the most beautiful costumes. Awarun had teased some part of Saro’s heart, and his young heart had fallen in love with the older and older woman in the community. “Gossip says that she left her husband’s house seven years ago. All men working for her were once her lover. This is now your time, okay? This woman you are involved with is a man-eater. Young good looking men like you are what she loves. She sleeps with them and turns them into enslaved people.” “Keep Quiet!” Saro railed at the gossiper.
Lots of the King’s wives and even some Princesses have eyed the young, timid and vulnerable man. Arawun, who had had a fling with Saro, his hostess, warned his young heart to be careful and not to “bite more than he could chew.” Saro is hurting too for Arawun because he had seen her with Akano (Kunle Afolayan). And when he confronts her, he gets disrespect in return: “You have a big dirty mouth. It also stinks; your mouth smells. It’s also rotten. I can also do whatever I like.” Saro stumbles on another alternative to Aruwan. The King’s youngest wife, Arolake, throws herself on Saro, and they fall in love. Soon, the gossip catches up with Arolake and Saro, and they try to elope. Before they can do so, the King’s townspeople catch up with Saro. He thinks Saro betrays the generosity of the people of Ayo and therefore be beaten to death.
When Saro has been trashed, his mangled and bloody body is left in the wild. He is brought back to life by a large ominous bird, Akala. Arolakke picks up the life-saving pouch when she whooshed the bird away from Saro. At this juncture in the story, maybe a climax, you can call it, because half the essence of the story is told. We shall only see if the relationship between Saro and Arolake, both runaways from justice and now in the wilderness, will last.
Saro’s weakness is his love of women. Lots of women. After his survival, his illegal wife, Arolake, concubine, you can call it, saved the pouch from the bird and helped raise many people to raise from the dead. Their presence in the village of Ujoma was a new sensation. Almost every community member brought baskets full of yams and goats to them and paid respect. Saro then married Omowunmi and Bimpie, and both had children for him. Like her previous marriage to the King of Oyo, Saro’s younger wives degrade, mock and disrespect her for her lack of kids. Arolake still has no child by Saro.
The community asks Saro to resurrect the Prince from the dead. He, in return, asks for the hand of the Princess of Ujoma as a reward. As usual, the power of the pouch has assured him of any request of humanity. “Anikulapo, you have the gut to ask my daughter for marriage?” Saro, insolently, “that’s not much. That’s what I want. I’ve been paid more by people who appreciate my power. How much more from a King.” Arolake had had enough of the molestations and petty jealousies in Saro’s household. The action that breaks the camel’s back is when Saro slaps her, and she learns that Saro asked the Princess to marry him in return for resurrecting her brother. Not another wife. It was enough; Arolake packed her luggage and left Saro’s household. But before then, she wastes the powder, the life-giving power, to raise the dead.
At last, the community agrees to his demand to call his bluff. But he soon finds that Arolake had wasted the power from the pouch before she left. The first community finds him a betrayer; his punishment is the mangled body we found on the road. In Ujoma, the community found him a fraud. We did not have to see it, but by God, I saw the one or two King’s men practicing with the bow and arrows, meant to be used to kill Saro if he lied about bringing the Prince back to life.
Saro, our Adonis, a reference to Greek mythology, considering his handsome stature and a craving for women, old and young; Awarun, for instance, and young Omowunmi Ayaladun Omofadeke ( Eyiyemi Afolayan), all swoon over him. He loved them all, and he buffeted in the good life. I regret to say, Afolayan created a tragic character with no payoff. And Ifayemi Elebuison’s inspiring story created a character as handsome as he could be but with a short life. He didn’t make himself that way. The oracles made his fate so: Idin’osun divination, a courageous child, robbed in the form of an Akala oracle, is consulted for Saro, a friend of Elemele Solagerege. Eventually, the protector becomes the sacrificial lamb.
Kunle created a marked man whose fate had been devined by Idin’ Osun. With all the masculine attributes the story gives him if we explore his inner mind, he has a sense of a boy, a teenager, just passed puberty. Sex and a love of women are his Achilles heel. See him in the scene touching himself shortly before he raped his maid. And got her pregnant and therefore married her as a second wife to Arolake. Saro’s constant appetite for sex leads to his damnation, but it is not him. It is divination. Even if he could, he wouldn’t and shouldn’t because the oracles have placed him there. Arolake could be put in the same place taking care of Saro, just as Aphrodite decanted magical nectar into Adonis’s wounds.
By the nature of my job–a reviewer, I mean– I don’t think it is my place to take part in the brouhaha between Kunle Afolayan and AMAA. One thing I note about these awards is that the filmmakers, actors, and actresses do not matter much more than the piece (Film) itself. Sajirat Ray of India says about film producers, writers, actors, and directors: “Once the making of a film is over, the sense of power evaporates and helplessness creeps in. He, the producer, director, and actor, realizes that he is not answerable to the critics, which all artists are, but to the faceless millions who form the public pulse.” AMAA is the barometer of the movie-going public pulse. Anikulapo is a Yoruba name for one who has captured death and put it in a pouch.
The title indicates an invincible character who defies death. According to the title, the great Kunle Afolayan’s character, Anikulapo, defies death. But what is Saro’s essence in the story anyway? Do we have to pit for him? Sorry for the demise he suffers in the movie. Does Anikulapo have economic viability outside the Yoruba ethnic community? Does Anikulapo have such viability? What is Saro’s intended achievement? I don’t know much about AMAA’s agenda. But for Hollywood, a film must show its financial viability first; hence a movie has to offer seven days to a packed house. Conclusively, what could be a reality in the death of The King’s Horsman, Anikulapo, is a fable.
,