A Green Fever

The first set of scenes in Taiwo Egunjobi’s latest offering, A Green Fever, sets the stage for an interesting yet haunting outing. I have been a follower of the filmmaker since before the days of his first feature film In Ibadan, and there’s a sense of tension and thrill that permeates all of his work, and that essence is not missing here.

In this movie, we follow the story of Kunmi Braithwaite (Temilolu Fosudo), an architect whose daughter, Ireti (Darasimi Nadi), becomes afflicted with green fever. Seeking refuge, they find themselves at Colonel Bashiru’s (William Benson) secluded house. But as the story progresses, we start to see the layers peel off each of the characters, and we lose a sense of truth and falsehood.

Generally, A Green Fever is a beautiful film. The shots are well-composed and serve as a very good vehicle to convey the story’s genre to the audience. The shots are tight, intimate, and not unnecessarily stylistic. It is obvious that Egunjobi (and his team) were very intentional about what the camera sees at each time and, more importantly, how it makes the audience feel. There’s a feeling of fear, of suffocation that generally heralds the audience, causal of how each shot is carved. It makes you uncomfortable and not make you trust too much or too little. The truth is, you can sense the characters aren’t honest, but you don’t know what about.

The score is one of the heroes of this movie. The use of silence, spooky sounds, and ominous tunes absolutely works in A Green Fever and sets the tone for a nail-biting experience. The great thing about A Green Fever is how intense things get as the story progresses, and this is not aided by just the story progression; the music is in tune with it, the shots, the acting and actors, every synchronizes.

The combination of Temi Fosudo and William Benson (though on opposite sides), is good for visual representations that move to make the audience feel for Temi and hate the Colonel. The casting is impeccable. The screentime with Colonel Bashiru and Kunmi Braithwaite is interesting and serves as the basis for the film: one man trying to outwit the other. Although, sometimes, the dialogue seems to veer off into its own hubris, it -like the characters- seems to find itself and focuses on the task at hand – outwitting the other person. Perhaps this is a storytelling and writing choice.

The first and second acts of this movie are solid, setting the mood for a beautiful resolution but unfortunately, it is plagued by the Nollywood 3rd act curse, veering into rushing and an incomplete ending. A Green Fever is slow, steady, but it failed to climax, leaving a sour taste in the audience’s mouth. But, it’s not a feeling that will ruin the experience for you, it just makes you wish it was well resolved, nevertheless, you’d love it.