Ijakumo: The Born Again Stripper is an exposé of an underworld cartel interested in questionable ventures that crumble like a pack of cards due to one man’s greedy past. It is a hybrid of religious beliefs and a fusion of phases. A bold attempt at nudity in the face of Nigeria’s moral struggle.
It would be classified in the Action/drama/adult genre. However, the movie has elements of other genres but its foundation is in drama. Let me help you make a graphic sense of it – imagine a Nigerian version of ‘India RRS’, combined with ‘Living in Bondage: Breaking Free’ psychokinesis, sprinkle with ‘Omo Ghetto-The Saga’ twinny trope, garnished with nudity of ‘Shanty Town’, errors of ‘Glamour Girls The Remake’ and paranormality of ‘Agesinkole’.
The Story:
Obviously not a common story.
Fictitious but a reflection of our immediate environment that is bellied in religious bigotry, esoterism, social menace and underworld cabals.
Ijakumo is a sociocultural reality of an emerging Nigeria.
The premise, tango, twist and resolution are all predictable.
When you raise ‘what if’ question in your film story, make sure the answer is not an easy nut to crack. This is instructive and important.
If Asabi has the power to repel live bullet appear and disappear, I don’t think she needs the services of Sharon or Hacker to get the holy thumb drive.
With her two hands tied in the car trunk, Sharon removes her phone and messages Asabi.
Haba!
What is all this in neo-Nollywood?
Sharon’s seemingly compromised discussion of Olajide with Asabi is enough to put her under security surveillance, which should lead the story to her captives.
The self-proclaimed hack goddess that could remotely generate the code of a security door may not need a thumb drive. Though, something is still unclear to me. Is the screenwriter saying all the account details of organ harvesting, transportation, hotel, club and Charis Christian church businesses are in one USB drive in the house of a common business front/placeholder?
Like some of us protested the cartels’ controversial USB drive in ‘Glamour Girl’s remake’, this Almighty token or USB get as e be.
A collaboration with a bank’s insider could be explored here.
The audience is not meant to be spoon-fed. We have seen Asabi being fortified by her father. We also see the spiritual webbing with the drum. With that, you have built a scary world around her. That badly executed chroma keying of father and daughter in the firmament is needless.
In the shoot-out scene, the stunts and effects remind me of RRS’ unrealistic and phoney depictions. In the same scene, Sharon has the luxury of time and audacity to tell Mary her life story in the face of death.
I doubt if women are allowed to share grace in churches. Kindly double-check that piece of information.
Filmmaking is a make-believe business, everything in filming is deliberate and purposeful. There is a need to understand the viewers’ attention span. Some scenes are long and talky. Show it, don’t tell it, is the first rule of screenwriting. The screenwriter tries putting different sub-plots into one film, contriving lazily twists – this is common in Nollywood films.
Why in one scene condescendingly sell crypto and wakanow? That’s after you have sold Asiwaju herbal.
The way those brands are featured abuses the viewers’ sensibilities.
You didn’t help the brands either, you only etch them in our eyes not in our hearts.
SOUND DESIGN, THEME MUSIC AND FOLEY
That hymnal is bae.
May the guitarist never contract herpetic whitlow.
The worship song is the bomb. But synching is the problem.
Quality sound and sound design.
Relevant songs and theme music.
That Ijakumo panegyric reminds me of Tope Alabi in her Yoruwood reigning days – with theme music, you don’t need to see the rest of the film.
What is the relationship between Awuru (a matted hair born) and Ijakumo (jackal)?
DIRECTOR’S SIGNATURE
I struggle to pin the directors’ delivery mode to semantic, semiotic, aesthetic or a combination of all.
The directors rely heavily on dialogue. Let me assume the screenplay has more spoken lines than the description/action.
The two church scenes, club and burial, are well-plotted and blocked.
The final fight sequence, the mountain top with pastor Remote, hacker’s set up, hospital, board meeting and sex scenes are far from convincing and reasonable.
DIALOGUE
I love code-mixing and indigenous language, maybe because I am poor at the king’s English.
Baths movie gives a good account of language use in Yoruba; I can’t say the same for English. Though, Olumide Owuru’s delivery of the Yoruba line is like drinking an overdose of ‘Asiwaju herbal’ without a readily available Sharon- the struggle with erection could better be imagined. Did I just type that?
Many talks, but no resonance, no engagement, no nexus of connection.
Most lines are not elevating the characters and deliverables.
Olajide’s raw and mature lines will make the street guys hippy.
Truth be told, somebody didn’t give attention to the depth of dialogue in Ijakumo.
CHARACTER AND CHARACTERISATION
Sharon/Mary (Lolade Okusanya), Olajide (Kunle Remi), Younger Asabi (Debora Shokoya), Kayinsoro (Kola Ajeyemi), and Baba Asabi (Ganiu Nofiu) deserve commendations.
Toyin Abraham is not bringing anything new. The ruthless valiant only exists in her head as a producer, not Asabi. She is not robust in her role interpretation.
If anything is wrong with Sharon’s act, blame the directors. She is flexible and spontaneous. Though, her body double is not well plotted – you won’t notice that if you are not a critical audience.
Olajide’s character picks up late in the film, it is not part of the character DNA from my observation. But he picks up later and finishes the marathon well.
FOR CULTURE
Creative freedom and cultural relativism are tangoed in Ijakumo.
In a culture that measures omoluabi by character, nudity may encounter some moral wraths.
Religious culture may also be queried, especially by Nigeria-based Personal Assistants to God.
For indigenous culture, few scenes speak to Yoruba tradition. The mythical and mystical tendencies of talking drum. Belief in apparition and promotion of traditional worshippers.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Nice sound output.
There are nice camera anglings, movements and a few creative shots, but they do not elevate the story. No matter how big your screen is, nothing can be compared to a CU. Drone or Jimmy Jib could have given impressive spectacles of the church scenes.
The lighting is not bad, especially in setting moods. The temperature does not match, and some lighting efforts are amateurish.
Pulling focus on two-shot that requires reaction is a sheer waste of lens and frame.
Some shots need compensatory and complementary takes.
The film looks like an effort salvaged at post-production because of some camera gaps.
I cannot understand the relevance of smoke in some scenes.
Intercutting the worship song with erotic scenes makes lots of cinematic sense.
PRODUCTION DESIGN
From past to present. Between modernity and antiquity. Vintage to contemporary. The Arts Department is great.
Costumes do not really say anything.
Long hair is meaningless.
The make-up is not bad.
Is that a wreath or a marriage bouquet?
Why the harvest of candles at the board meeting?
LESSON LEARNT
Karma comes calling no matter how long.
Worship God, not your pastor.
Listen to your parents, they still hold the ace.
POSTSCRIPT
No perfect film anywhere.
With ₦278,496,384 at the box office, Ijakumo performed above average considering the genre.
But watching the film is like buying a condom with multiple holes from Kiekie’s pharmacy. The wasted money and dissipated sensual efforts are less painful than the damages of STDs and unwanted pregnancies.
The film is Toyin Abraham’s reflection of personal conjectures and fantasies, not audience-oriented.
It is evidenced by the title – Ijakumo, uncoordinated plots, unrelated long trailing hair, needless tribal marks and flappy bums flying around the screen space.
In Ijakumo, there is tension between self-absorb, fiction, fantasies, creativity, culture and reality – ‘world best’ prefer self-absorbent to other factors in telling her story.
The movie is streaming on Netflix, watch and let’s have your takes. You never can tell; I may be wrong.
