Igbotic Love

The first huddle I came across in respect to reviewing this movie was determining whether or not it was just a regular home video or an Igbo film. At the end of the day, it was concluded that it is an Igbo film because more than 75% of the movie is in Igbo. At this point you might wonder, what does it matter if it is an Igbo movie or not. To answer that question, it is really just an individual issue. If you are Igbo then it does not matter that it is an Igbo movie. If you are not then reading subtitles is a main part of your experience of the movie, in which case it does in fact matter.

Igbotic Love – as ‘interesting’ as the title is – is the story of two lovers who are ready to tie the nuptial knot and are accosted by difficulties from one of their parents. However, this is not the conventional “I don’t like your choice” “He/she is not (rich, pretty, high status, similar to us, etc) enough”. Even though the movie is two hours long, it has only one part because it is able to combine the aspects of regular movies that would otherwise lead to two parts, into one interesting whole.

In this movie, Prince Nwafor’s character returns to the village with his chosen fiancee – Queen Nwokoye – and first introduces her to his father. On mention of her lineage, the otherwise cordial conversation begins to turn sour. However, the realities didn’t truly surface until introductions were done with his fiancee’s parents. Queen Nwokoye’s character’s mother is played by Clarion Chukwura who upon hearing of her soon to be son-in-law’s parentage throws a ruckus.

The majority of the movie on the audience side is spent waiting to find out ‘why’. The struggle for most movies is that by the time the script is ready to answer that question, most of the audience has lost interest. Igbotic Love was unique in that the answer to the question was revealed midway as opposed to the usual – at the end of the movie, then the rest of the movie was spent in “nmeko” (igbo for ‘reconciliation’) territory.

The movie does loose a significant portion of its fire after the revelation of why but the story would have gone further downhill (not to mention loosing the interest of the audience) if it was not revealed when it was.

The performances in this movie from the lead pair was solid but for once I have to reserve my praise of Prince and Queen in light of Clarion’s magnificence and the sheer hilarity of the actor who played Chuka. It is without question that when Clarion is on screen she simply possesses every part of the frame. The beauty of this character is that she was not simply thrown into ‘evil woman’ territory, her character had fabric and a story. So while she showed her aggressive side, there was ample opportunity for a soft, broken side to show up.

The character who plays Chuka on the other hand provided the comic relief for the movie. Even though occasionally in some scenes the relief part was a little too prolonged, he was still a sheer delight to watch.

The movie had some poor performers – namely the actor that plays Prince Nwafor’s father, in many scenes the subtitles are incomplete and more than once the score is too dramatic, but the little it does right is enough to provide for an entertaining watch.