Kap Motion Pictures, Golden Effects present Fawaz Aina (Omooba), Ebiesuwa Oluwaseyi (Ranti), Kayode Ojuolape (Jamiu), Ruby Akubueze (Oby), Yemi Shodimu (Principal), Bimbo Manuel (Kabiesi), Sam Dede (Rev. Sangodoyin), Yemi Solade (Chief Owonifaari), Gregory Ajefua (Teju) Femi Branch, (Banjo), Femi Adebayo (Head of Amotekun), Gabriel Afolayan (Broda Kasali), Funky Mallam (Kafachan), Bolaji Amusan (Alabi), Tana Adelana (Mama Oby), Adunni Ade (Chidera). Director, Kunle Afolayan; Writers, Tunde Babalola, Kunle Afolayan; Producer, Kunle Afolayan; ©2023
I always quiver to my bones when I see Afolayan’s production. His projects are as serious as his unsmiling, and resolute face. It has been almost fourteen years since his masterpiece, The Figurine (2009) which brought him universal acclaim and numerous accolades. Ijogbon falls not far from a parent tree that shares her DNA: stumbling on a buried demon or diamond in the thick of the forest. It could be one’s lucky day, or a detriment, and inimical to one’s happiness. Gloom and doom or boon, may likely await you. Afolayan throws such cautions to the wind in The Figurine.
Whereas in The Figurine, Sola (Kunle Afolayan) and Femi (Ramsey Nouah). Both adults and fresh from NYSC, slug it out with goddess ‘Araromire,’ whom they stumble upon in the dead of a forest. In Ijogbon, it is the four young teenagers, Oby (Ruby Akubueze) Mama Oby’s (Tana Adelana) only daughter; Jamiu (Kayode Ojuolape) a Muslim, principal of a school’s only son; Ranti (Ebiesuwa Oluwaseyi) only son of the Anglican church Rev. Sangodoyin (Sam Dede) and young Omooba, (Fawaz Aina), the only son of Chief Kabiesi, (Bimbo Manuel). With such a lineup, of only sons and a daughter, Golden Effects with the help of ingenious screenwriters, Tunde Babalola, et al creates excellent up-and-coming characters.
In the introduction of my upcoming Nollywood Movie Reviews Volume 1, I hinted at a complaint–– not quite a complaint but a passing notice––that Nollywood hasn’t done much in packaging movies about youths that would pertain to their positive development. Golden Effects beat me to this perception. Ijogbon is a fascinating movie acted by youths with no negative absurdities, yet it wilted away the youthful innocence of four kids and plunged them into the adult world.
The playful after-school lives of four youths lying on rocks in the sun become an adventure they never imagined. Ranti is seminary-bound, and Jamiu dreams about going to Canada. But when they wander the woods, Oby is strapped by a leather bag handle buried under the shrub. Their faces brightened as they discovered a handful of diamonds in a pouch tucked away in the bag. Their lives take a dramatic, chaotic, raucous curve. From here thence, the story takes Nursey Rhyme mode of the cumulative tale of The House That Jack Built.
The gang of teenagers take the stones to a crook dealer, Chief Owonifaari (Yemi Solade), and go on a shopping spree afterward. Chief, on the other hand, is not satisfied with the number of diamonds he had from the teenagers. There are more diamonds the kid retained, so he notices and sends his go-getter dog, Broda Kasali (Gabriel Afolayan) after the kids, to their cave.
Jamiu takes command of the gangland and has a meeting in the hideout: “Listen up guys, sure, it was fun going on a shopping spree in Ibadan but let us think of the future. Henceforth, I will keep the diamonds hidden here in this cave. None of us should come here alone. We must come in twos or threes.” “Hold on, why should it be you?” Ranti asks. He points to them individually; their future is not in the village. Ranti must abandon his father’s dream of him going to seminary and join the crew in Canada. “Oby, you know I care about you a lot. Look, if you come with me to Canada, we can start our life together. Guys come on.” As a safeguard to secrecy, he takes Prince’s iPhone from him. “If it is seen with you, how do you explain owning such an expensive iPhone?” Then he admonishes him, “You are young, bright, and you’re intelligent. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in this town?”
The beauty of this movie is that the four kids (let me call them kids even if they are over twenty years old. In Africa, we still assume them to be kids), this coming-of-age movie exposes the ‘child’ in each of the characters. It is like the rite of passage for a girl and three boys to manhood. Instantaneously, they are faced with the dilemma as to what they should do with the newfound loot they stumbled on. They face an ordeal of how to deal with the situation, with bewilderment on their faces, arguments and fist-fights ensue. And the experience of this all shall leave them like one woke up from a fantastical dream.
Meanwhile, the parallel gang of thieves who had initially run in pursuit of the diamonds, and eventually got Teju (Gregory Ojefua) killed got in town as corporate investors wishing to open a company just where they thought Teju had hidden the diamonds. It is all a mess of confusion and collisions with the fake investors and Chief. While the henchman, Kafachan (Funky Mallan) kidnaps Omooba, who will eventually bring the other fellas to him, Chief goes after Kasali, having known that he had taken the diamonds from the kids, and was shacking up at Chief’s girlfriend’s place. Kasali is caught in bed with Chief’s girl, and he gets shot, dead. By now the parents of the kids are frantically looking for the whereabouts of their kids, especially Prince. It is all raucous and confusing.
Not every movie scene can be memorable, but a few rare ones leave unforgettable marks on your critical mind. For instance in My Wife & I (2017)Ramsey and Omoni walk the long walk, holding hands and talking small talk, the camera following them, and sometimes they walk towards the camera, now taking in the city landscape behind them leaving an indelible mark on my critical brain. It is a long take, as the longest take in Touch of Evil (1958) The bridge scene in Ijogbon is memorable, not just in dialogue but the location and the camera shots. The camera isolates the kids on top of the bridge and takes a long-distance shot at them. Memorable scene.
If the writers had not included Oby in the bridge scene, who acted as the heroin, the story would have ended like the dark end of The Pardoner’s Tale: Three friends went on a hunt to avenge the killing of their friend. They found under a tree a sack of gold. In short, they kill each other over the loot they find under the tree. Oby is the adult between Ranti and his friend Jamiu, and in the final scene on the bridge:
Jamiu, “So, these 19 diamonds finally belong to us.”
Oby, “So many people are dead because of these diamonds.”
Ranti, “Wait a minute, I think we should set aside four diamonds for the Prince…”
Jamiu, “but nobody must find out what happened. Remember that’s the promise we made with the Chinese man….Meanwhile, I’ll hold these diamonds.”
Ranti, “Hold on! Why are you keeping them?”
Jamiu, “What’s your problem?”
“You are my problem! You always act like our boss. Always making decisions….Jamiu I want my diamonds! Give me my diamonds!”
Fight breaks out between Ranti and Jamiu with Oby struggling to separate them.
Oby, “If he says he wants the diamond just give it to him.”
“If people see it with him what will he say?”
When Jamiu finds out Ranti has a crush on Oby they go at it again, pushing Oby asunder and falling over the pouch. She takes the pouch, and out of breath, addresses them:
“Oh, how Oranmiyan blessed this village with treasure. Prince is in the hospital and we are not even sure he will make it. And here we are fighting over something that is not even our own.”
She opens the pouch and takes out the diamonds in her hand.
Jamiu, afraid of the outcome, “Oby!”
“These diamonds are not a blessing…they bring out the worst in us….Not anymore!”
As she vehemently chunks the entire diamonds in the murky river, Ranti and Jamiu are askance, like them, and with them, I yell out loud (YOL).
Ijogbon as a movie could be harrowing but frank. It exposes innocent kids to the underbelly of the adult world. Here is a story for which I can call Genesis Movie House in Abuja to reserve four seats for me, my wife, and two kids. I hear there’s “sadistic brouhaha” in the movie.