Movie Review: Ife
How do you make an LGBTQ movie in a society where a musician reportedly gets investigated by the police for featuring a married woman in his music video?
Or in an industry where LGBTQ themes in movies are typically portrayed as demonic influences resolved by prayer interventions?
With both the society, industry and film certification agency vocally against it, you say "fuck it, I'll tell my story".
Writer/Director, Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim chose the short-film genre to tell an intelligently written and brilliantly-acted simple story of two young ladies falling in love over a 3-day date.
Ife opens with the titular character, Ife(Amaka Aniunoh) prepping to receive her love interest, Adaora(Cindy Amadi) with Temmie Owassa's deliciously rebellious vocals providing a fitting background soundtrack for this nervous first encounter.
Immediately she opens the door to behold her love interest, Ife’s face eloquently captures the nervousness and concealed excitement of the moment and follows it up with a relatable nervous prattle.
From that moment of their first encounter, Uyaiedu's brilliant dialogue animates the film's duo cast and instantly engages the viewer's attention.
The riveting dialogue and the cast's understated but masterful interpretation of it waltz the viewer from the nervousness of their first encounter to their confessions of affection and right through the afterglow of passion explored.
Nothing is cluttered in this short film and nothing is contrived or done just for the heck of it. It seeks only to tell a simple story of love (albeit one deemed forbidden only because society is too deep-seethed in its ignorance to see beyond its prejudice), and by jove, it did.
Of the duo cast, Amaka Aniunoh's portrayal of Ife stands out, thanks to Aniunoh's confident and controlled acting chops. She was nervous and shy in one moment and confident and comfortable with her sexuality in the other oscillating between both spectra with uncontrived believability.
Cindy Amadi's Adaorah, on the other hand, was portrayed with the shyness and hold-back consistent with one who was comfortable with her sexuality but still cowered about coming out by the inevitability of parental and societal backlash.
With its duo cast and a 35-minute and 17-second running time, Ife brilliantly and effortlessly achieved what Nollywood has for decades failed and continues to largely fail to achieve: tell a simple and brilliant dialogue-driven love story without preachy contrived fluff and overcompensating histrionics. 7.5/10.
