By Foyin Ejilola
The Yoruba film sector began before Nigerian independence with stage actors and dramatists who founded travelling theatre groups which consisted of members that played roles, besides acting, in ensuring the success of a stage play. These actors often lead their theatre groups to perform plays in various stages in many parts of the country. They were prominent for entertaining their audience while passing across a clear message. Some of these actors were Hubert Ogunde who with his theatre group performed stage plays like Human Parasites, Yoruba Ronu, Portmanteau Woman; Duro Ladipo, who performed Obamoro, Oba Koso, and Kola Ogunmola known for his plays; Love for Money and Lanke Omuti, which is an adaptation of Amos Tutuola’s Palmwine Drinkard.
With the advent of television and its popularity in post-colonial Nigeria, many of the members of the travelling theatre groups began to shift from stage acting to movie production. They began to adapt some of their early plays into movies. This transition saw the rise of filmmaking in the Yoruba theatre sector. Some of the earliest filmmakers are Ola Balogun, Hubert Ogunde, Adeyemi Afolayan, and Moses Olaiya. Some of the films of this era, which is also referred to as the Golden Age of Nigerian theatre, are Aiye, Ija Ominira, Aropin n’tenia, and Mosebolatan.
The era of home videos began in the late 80s. Blockbuster movies like Saworoide, Ti Oluwa Nile, Oleku, and a host of others, graced the screens during this time. The home video era paved the way for people to start watching movies from the comfort of their homes and this has continued to date as people now watch movies on their televisions and phones.
The plays before the Golden age and the movies of the Golden age and early home video era have a common feature; the works plausibly narrate events in the society in different forms, while weaving a strong storyline and plot, along with the right settings, proper characterisation, and costumes. For a sector that began with creative pioneers and predecessors who invested a lot into seamless storytelling and strong plots, the Yoruba sector of the Nigerian film industry, now known as Nollywood, has greatly declined to a mere gracing of screens with overrated irrelevance.
The Yoruba film sector, from the mid-2000s, began to experience a plunge in the quality of movies being produced. This became pronounced in 2010 and has remained so till date. Now, the English-speaking sector of the Nigerian Industry has taken over, while the Yoruba sector trails behind.
Poor storytelling is one of the major problems the Yoruba sector is faced with and this manifests in many movies with illogical plot structures and unconvincing central ideas. One of the features of great storytelling includes telling ordinary stories in extraordinary ways, but many Yoruba actors and movie producers have failed. It is now very common to see movies whose climax nor denouement are unidentifiable. It is also not an unusual sight to see movies that have either poorly narrated or unconvincing themes.
If compared, seamless storytelling sets the movies of the golden age and early home video era apart from the movies produced from the mid-2000s till date. Actions often flow into one another unlike now when viewers hardly watch Yoruba movies without, after spotting loopholes, questioning the techniques of narration. These have undoubtedly turned the Yoruba sector into a subject of ridicule. Also, with many events and incidences springing up in the society, many actors in the sector have chosen to ignore the reality, but instead, focus on telling and retelling cliche stories of jealous and materialistic wives, marital problems, disobedient children, money rituals, and consequences of armed robbery and prostitution, without employing the least creativity.
From the times of Hubert Ogunde and his contemporaries, till the 90s, Yoruba movies are often didactic, regardless of the form of storytelling which could be a satire or a comedy. However, things have taken major turns as the movies produced now teach little to no morals with sour entertainment, which leave the fate of a viewer in the hands of their discretion to avoid being wrongly informed. The sector is now largely invested in producing hilarious movies with abundant sexual innuendos that are not significant.
Poor characterisation and inappropriate setting and costumes also form a large part of the inadequacies in many Yoruba movies. More often than not, characters are often given roles that they end up under or overplaying, mostly to imbalances in the physique of the actor and the intended character. Also, inappropriate temporal and geographic settings often make the themes of the movies dead on arrival. In some movies about the Yoruba kingdom, palace maids are made to dress like Igbo maidens. It is glaring that the actors have lost touch with what it means to create a unique body of art, rather, they are merely satisfying their hunger for the screen.
While the works of the preceding Yoruba dramatists and filmmakers did a great job of sensitizing their audience with convincing visual storytelling, the films of recent times have descended from that zenith to a pitiable rock bottom.
