By Tolu Fagbure, Ibadan
ANIKULAPO is deep in visual aesthetics and kinetic delivery; there’s something about the entire look and feel that hooks you on.
As a man sentimental on music, I find the music flow (vocal and style) a tad bit too foreign and shallow.
The actors did a good job of drawing you into their world and keeping you there BUT there’s a point where the actor and director (director mostly) share the blame, language delivery; for a film set in Oyo Ile and environs, adequate attention was definitely not paid to delivering the Oyo Yoruba language brand. One would think that the actors would invest some time to steep themselves in learning the required language style perhaps because the director would insist which he obviously didn’t.
Bimbo Ademoye is the acting hero of the entire show, she delivers very well in language style fluency which aided the kinetics of her acting, simply put, she’s good at what she does while winning hearts.
Kunle Afolayan got directing pretty good because once a film has been properly cast then 50% of the job is done though I consider the inclusion of Hakeem Kae Kazim an unnecessary waste of resources but of course, I am not privy to the backend business discussions.
The use of the usual Yoruba film folks especially the older amalgam seemed cut to fit, perhaps this is the first film that Taiwo Hassan will not sound preachy and lengthy abi? Plus I like the attention to making the actors look different from the images we know of them in their characters, even Adewale Eleso (the mulatto/albino veteran) got a different look, I love it!
Let’s talk story, though the story seem to take off slowly but if you are very familiar with Yoruba under the tree storytelling, you would understand that it’s not unusual, infact it’s a requirement that our tales start slowly, gently pick up speed and spiral down racing towards the end point though the end here is extremely unclear and that is very unlike Yoruba tales especially one adapted from the Ifa corpus.
As Production Designer, Casting Director combined with the stress of working with a cinematographer who doesn’t speak the film language, I am certain that the director took up a whole lot of work (maybe a little too much) to achieve this film but in the end, it’s not a bad effort at an Oscar Entry.
