Black Silhouette

You know when you’ve had really good food once before in your life, and then you go for a period of time without food that is that good. Then one beautiful day someone presents to you food that appears like good food, smells like good food, and has all the makings of good food and then you eat it and it might be aight but it wasn’t just there. That’s what this movie was!

Black Silhouette is the story of a character who in present day is running for governor but feels the need to reflect on her past life before moving ahead. This character, played by Joke Silva, hires a biographer and sits with him to tell him her life story. The entirety of the movie is set in a flashback with occasional returns to the present set. Her younger character, played by Ivie Okujaiye, is a girl who lives through a lot of hardships – financially and otherwise. Due to these and many other factors, she finds herself working as a prostitute in the night train. This is when she meets Dr Obi, played by Femi Jacobs. The rest of the movie sets up her relationship with him as well as how she got to the point of working at the night train.

The movie uses a lot of intense music from the get go to hook you and make the viewer feel very expectant. This works in favor of the movie as well as against the movie. It helps the movie because it definitely intrigues from the start and you feel as though something ‘great’ is coming. However, it works against the movie because by the end you feel like the greatness never arrived.

The movie was set up like it was so much more than what it ended up being. I almost would not have minded it being longer just so that it leaves a full taste in the mouth. By the end, it seemed very anticlimactic, and this was not even because the ending was bad but because you are left wondering “so where’s the rest”?

Regardless, with the storyline that we were given a lot of things were done right. The actors in this movie were spectacular. Starting from Joke Silva all the way to the little boy who plays the character of her younger brother, all the performers were bringing their A-Game. It was a delight to see Jude Orhorha on screen again. Watching Ivie grow as an actor is definitely a beautiful sight. And Femi Jacobs as the distraught savior is an interestingly different angle but he still delivers as usual. Then there was Chigozie Atuanya towards the end, breaking his good boy type-cast with this outrageously left-field, but well delivered, character.

As much as it had pros, it also had cons. One of the major cons was the anachronism that was held constant through the entire thing. Anachronism is when items from a different period are used in a set. So this is a flashback of Silva’s youth. The character in her flashback is 19 and, in an attempt to be open-minded, let’s place Silva’s character’s age at a generous 50. Even then, the flashback would have to be at least 31 years ago. However, the songs, the sets, the technology, the costumes, the props etc. were all not in accordance with what is expected of that time period. There was a scene with a smart watch, and there were the phones being used, then the POS system, then the songs played, and these were all ahead of their time.

But let’s assume that the average viewer overlooks this. There was one glaring scene that I doubt anyone did not notice. This was the scene where, Maro’s friend – Osas – reveals to her that her job is prostitution. She goes on about how she has no family and no one to look out for her and she would much rather get paid for her body than have it forcefully taken for free. …and then she breaks into song. I had to pause and collect myself wondering if this was really happening right now. Why are you singing? Is this “Sound of Music”?

All in all, Black Silhouette is an okay watch just be sure to hold your expectations at bay.