Netflix Presents Playnetwork Studios Productions, Adaobi Dibor (Oyin), David Ezekiel (Abbey), Sylvester Ekanem (Tekena), John Setor Dumelo (Commander John Abe), Katrina Ataman (Anya), Francis Duru (Pere), Alexis Ebi (Bibi), Jidekene Achufusi (Boma), Levi Chikere (Degbe) Bimbo Manuel (Ebiye), Fares Boulos (Dimitre) Pere Oghenemaro Egbi (Captain Qudus) Obinna Christian Okenwa (Olutu), Alex Cyr Budin (Igor), Director, Moses Inwang; Writers, Musa Jeffery David, Justin Dix, Jordan Prosser; Executive Producer, Charles Okpaleke; Producers, Agozie Uzo Ugwu, Steven Matusko, Fafa Bello-Osagie; Original story, Charles Okpaleke; Cinematographer, Gideon Chidi Chukwu. © 2023
Tales about Africans crossing the Atlantic to the Western world started centuries ago. And all has not been a story of joy but a demise, and as I write this review African youth would be in a canoe-like sailboat braving the awe-inspiring oceans, in a quest for greener pastures––Atlantics (2019). Our forefathers in the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade suffered similar fates at sea and abroad. You may not believe this, but there are lots of horrendous stories of ghost sightings in past slave storages, now museums, in Senegal and Ghana. At night, you hear ghost-like howlings. Fearful.
In recent history, and on film, in Adu (2020) Moustapha Oumarou, fell off a plane in midair. This is the story of two kids, a boy, Adu, and a girl, Alika (Zayiddiya Dissou) from Cameroon, who embark on the fateful journey of joining their father in Spain and are loaded in a stowaway plane. A fateful journey across the awe-inspiring landscape to nowhere. Atlantics echo the same anguish and horrors. Another macabre story about the African youths crossing the Atlantic, this time from Senegal. Here, all the African youths who perished at sea come back in the form of spirits to revenge on the perpetrators of their demise.
There had been skirmishes between government forces and the youths of Nembe, an oil mining village in the Niger Delta. In Oloibiri, (2016), the oil company has salvaged the environment for the people of Oloibiri, their fish, and natural vegetation, violated and the natives stand against the Whiteman’s company owners and even fight themselves, natives to make things right. The youths are not having it. They want the Axis Oil Company that steals their resources and poison their waters in Nembe, out. They are in revolt, and an army officer has been doused with a firebomb and he gets burnt alive. The army vows to bring in perpetrators, “even if it takes to burn the entire village to the ground.” Pandemonium ensues.
By and by, the two culprits Degbe (Levi Chikere) and Boma (Jidikene Aschufusi), who had doused the officer, by chance joined a group of four youths who see no hope in Nembe, for themselves under the circumstances and want to get out before they get caught up in the milieu. All six stow away in a Russian oil smuggling frigate, after they paid Mr. P (Francis Duru) a prearranged sum of money to get them across. Olotu (Obinna Christian Okinwa) had told his mother, “When we get to the Whiteman’s land, I’ll call you,” before he and his younger brother Ekene boarded the ill-fated crude oil-smuggling frigate and shoved into the bunker of an all-Russian ship.
Like all stowaways in a bunker, soon they become miserable. They have exhausted the meager food, drink, and water they had, and the stench from the bucket standing in front of them is suffocating. Degbe and Boma have a preconceived animosity toward Abbey (, who to them is a half-breed–-Omeni. Even in the face of the problem they face, the stowaways have ethnic animosity towards one another. The entire community in Bempe has never loved Abbey because his mother is Igbo and was born in another tribe. In a heart-touching scene and a moment of truth, Degbe and Abbey (David Ezekiel) come to terms. Abbey’s pregnant girlfriend’s face is damp with beads of sweat. She complained of a headache, which gave Abbey reason to leave the bunker in search of medicine for Oyin (Adaobi Dibor).
As they floundered in hunger and heat in the bunker, up above on the deck, in the ship’s dining room, the crew is dining and wining, like there’s no tomorrow. “It snows and rains, and whoever’s not in Africa is, a dumbass,” the Captain of the ship raises his glass of wine to toast. “A dumbass!” the revelers echo. In the bunker, Degbe can’t stand the hunger anymore, and he breaks from the gang to sneak upstairs for a bite or two but gets caught. And the whole gang is hauled up into the dining room and invited to dinner. The ship Captain and owner of the frigate shoots Degbe in front of his friends. There starts the most gruesome stowaway experience, more than the stowaways in Atlantics.
At this time in the story, we come face to face with the verisimilitude of the setting––the blue and awe-inspiring ocean surrounding the frigate. The six youths have escaped the riot in Nembe, to run to safety. Not thinking where the safety is but to get away. Yet, they enter into a new situation on a ship, that doesn’t hold the promise they dream about in life. When Mr. P. shut that bun ker gate on them, and them living in an unpredictable future, we on the outside pray for them. But they on the inside, thank their Lord for a safe deliverance from the chaos they left behind in Nembe. Oyin, however, shed tears. She has never been away from home and missed it.
But we the audience, and the stowaways quickly find out when Boma is shot at the back of his head, as he sits eating, this to us all, is not going to be the blessed trip that mothers pray for their children crossing the Ocean to greener pastures. There’s a commotion on the deck and all the stowaways are gagged, except Abbey who had outmaneuvered the ship’s crew, and presently loitering on the deck to find means of helping his friends. In short, all the stowaways would be killed. Abbey, the only surviving character kills the captain of the ship and mysteriously ends up back in Nembe, taking with him all the money he finds in the drawer and shares with the parents of his friends who couldn’t make it off the ship.
There are certain aspects of this film that I take away. I juxtapose the scene when Mr. P. shuts the bunker door on the stowaway, the sound of the heavy iron door, burying the youths underground, all with the hope of a better tomorrow, and then the camera takes us to the vacant but teeming dark ocean that engulfs the ship. Loneliness, fear, and pathos set in for me for the youths in the bunker left alone and awaiting what future lies for them in this trip to make it abroad.
Then inside the bunker, Oyin mentally recalls what her grandmother had told her about Pythons: “Whoever eats a python is bound to perish,” she had told her. And seeing Boma and Degbe barbecuing the python caught off Ekena’s neck, wasn’t a good sign for the trip. She goes on to tell the depressing story her grandmother once told her about the slave traders taking Africans abroad. We see shots of slaves dumped at sea, while she sings, “A mighty ocean covers my heart. When the time comes, grace will arrive,” over the story. Even Boma sheds secret tears away from everyone, as the story hits home. He envisions the bleak future the slaves must have experienced, and now, he and five others are faced with the same demise. Was Oyin’s Grandmothers’s story an omen what would befall them?
In art as in drama, when by circumstances new characters are introduced, they are more or less like showing the presence of a gun in a story. We believe sooner or later, the gun for sure would fire. We wondered what happened to one of the few Black women on board the ship who yelled when she saw Degbe wandering in the kitchen, looking for food. That eventually led to the discovery of the stowaways. When the stowaway is shot in her presence and she freaks out, she says to the Captain, “I want to get off the ship. I want to go home.” That is a dramatic point, with no effect. Then too, Abbey helps free a ship worker gagged in some room, but once freed, nothing more is exposed about him in the story. Now these two could be loose ends that fail to knead the story together into a beautiful dough, for our Christmas evening family dinner.
When Abbey arrives back mysteriously in Nembe, a village already struck with mortal grief, he goes about visiting each member of the stowaways’ compound, leaving behind him wads of crispy dollar bills, for the family, but their cheeks streaming down with tears for the love of their children. Ebiye (Bimbo Manuel) for once takes it so seriously, that instead of a matchet, which he had earlier held in his hands hunting Abbey, this time, he takes a double barrel gun to hunt Abbey for the loss of his daughter Oyin.
Most Nollywood movies aren’t kind to the characters who venture the Atlantic into Europe or America. Look what Blood Vessel does to the six stowaway youths. Two survived and miraculously ended up back in Nimbe. It’s like the ship sailed to Accra, Cape Verde, and back to Lagos, in a circle. Next time give me a heroic character like we witnessed in America America (1963), that Elia Kazan’s masterpiece drama is about a boy who dreams of emigrating to America and succeeds. He trekked on foot, in the snow, was stripped by armed robbers, and rode on a bicycle, stowaway in a ship, but eventually landed in front of the Statue of Liberty. Almost all stories and characters from Africa or Nollywood to come abroad in an unconventional way have perished. Next time we put a character on a bicycle who can ride his way from Nembe to New York or London. A new and challenging phenomenon.