Hypnotic creation from a natural-born filmmaker
Shola Amoo produces images of poetic power in his part-autobiographical tale of growing up in Lincolnshire
The partautobiographical British film written and directed by AngloNigerian Shola Amoo, is the work of a natural-born moviemaker. Parts of it are as awesome as The images, rhythms and grace notes eerie tracking shots, sighs and flickers of slow motion, sonic throbs and soarings on the soundtrack breathe like landscapes.
The early scenes of Femi (Tai Golding) living a preteen idyll in rural Lincolnshire with his foster mum, have a rapture of vision. The boy’s eyes are so large they take in everything. We share his love of the rustling trees and chorusing winds. There is magic in the repeated shot of a green field cradled by a yellower foreground’s bowl-like arc, like the child’s soul rocking in the cradle of childhood.
But Femi, unhappily reunited with his birth mother (Denise Black), goes to London to live in a high-rise housing estate. His life dulls and declines so does the film. The middle act is gangwar peer pressure vs the aspirations encouraged by a good-messiah teacher. We’ve been there, done that, worn out the T-shirts. And the facial features of the older Femi (Sam Adewunmi) are less protean and expressive than the young Femi’s. That may be a point: the boy is hardening into teenhood’s conflicts and defences. But it means the burden of expressiveness starts falling on the film’s techniques rather than the actors’ resources.
Oh, but what techniques: Amoo gives every moment a visual or aural identity, as if it won’t live if it doesn’t have a filmic heartbeat. Two staring, breathing, wordless close-ups of his hero held beyond their expected spans have a poetic power. And twice a passage of anguished transport in Femi’s emotional life is given literal yet surreal representation. The actor is tracked forward on some invisible conveyance, so that background seems to peel away from foreground, as outer world is alienated from inner.
The third and last act is a “return” to Africa. The joy of rediscovered ancestral roots doesn’t quite convince. It’s a blur of exultation and street colour, with a consummating scamper on a beach. But one sequence has genius again. The boy goes to meet a key character in his family’s story. All we see initially
though the shot lasts an age is a motionless wide view of a palatial hall, with a seated Femi and assorted criss-crossing characters. It’s hypnotic. It’s like a stage set waiting for a play. And so, at this moment, is Femi’s mind. Image and meaning fuse, flawlessly.
This is one you shouldn’t take your eyes from./©