Nightmare on Beach Road

Kunle Afolayan’s new film, ‘The Figurine’ is a blockbuster designed to eclipse the filmmaker’s last effort, ‘Irapada’. From all indications, ‘The Figurine’ will surpass its predecessor.

The film has had a star-studded premiere in Lagos, with London’s Odeon Leicester Square to follow. It is set to become only the second movie by a homegrown filmmaker (after Stephanie Okereke’s ‘Through the Glass’) to top the Nigerian box office. Movie lovers will be asking: is ‘The Figurine’ really that good? Thankfully, it is.

In the beginning

The film’s opening scenes are coated in a lush daguerreotype hue as musician Lagbaja’s voice supplies a narration of events from 1908 in the remote town of Araromire. But it is no cause for nostalgia. A priest carves a deity from the bark of a cursed tree.

She is the goddess of fortune and good luck, and heralds seven years of plenty for the town. Then seven lean years follow, during which everything turns bad for the inhabitants; they blame the goddess and turn their backs on her.

Araromire goes out of fashion until 2001 when her carved image – the figurine - is found by two youth corps members (played by Ramsey Nouah and Kunle Afolayan).

A love triangle

The new millennium sees Afolayan’s character, Sola Fajure, fresh out of university with a third class in Archaeology. An indolent, gum chewing hustler, he flunks a job interview and decides it’s not too late to turn up for compulsory national youth service.

Mad Max without the angst, he arrives at the orientation camp in Araromire, knowing his girlfriend, Mona – and his friend, Femi – are already there. A nerdy daddy’s boy with thick glasses, Femi has had to leave his devoted sister and ailing father back in Lagos.

He adores Mona, but she is besotted with the philandering Sola, who wins the day, despite his bad boy ways. The scene is set for a classic love triangle that marks the trio for the rest of their lives.

The asthma motif

The two friends stumble on the figurine in an abandoned shrine while on an endurance trek, and Sola decides to keep it. The figurine, too, will mark them for life, though the film keeps its secrets until the very end.

For now, the viewer knows the discovery portends no good, thanks to the painful asthmatic wheezing of the sensitive Femi, who is prone to panic attacks.

Femi’s asthmatic episodes are a powerful motif in the movie, and echo Annabella Sciorra’s asthma attacks in the Hollywood film, ‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’. She is the innocent person in that film, as Femi appears in ‘The Figurine’ – all the signs tell us: Femi is good; Sola is bad.

Sola certainly fits the bill. Thoughtless and insensitive, he absent-mindedly consoles Femi, “pele, pele, pele” – while aggravating the latter’s asthma by lighting a cigarette – to some comic effect.

Pain and suffering will be unleashed, but ‘The Figurine’ gives ample opportunity for laughter along the way, especially once the bubbly Linda Chukwu, the man-eater who’s got the hots for Femi, shows up on the scene.

Another comic turn is provided by ‘Sango’ actor, Wale Adebayo, who plays the no-nonsense drill sergeant in Camp Araromire. “I no go fit help una,” he tells the friends when they try to retrace their steps to the shrine, years later.

Chequered history

There is mystery aplenty, especially once a professor, played by artist Muraina Oyelami, unravels the figurine’s chequered history for Mona. Araromire’s downsides are “seven years of destruction. Palm-wine will become poison... sons will rot!”

He adds that Araromire’s story is merely a fable, but Mona is beyond such reassurances. Upbeat music opens the vista to 2007 in Lagos. Life is good for the three friends, having come up with an expected series of lucky strikes after their youth service.

Mona and Sola are expecting their second baby, and Femi has just returned from a successful spell abroad. Seven years of plenty are coming to a close, and as things start to go awry, Mona becomes fearful of the figurine in her husband’s study.

The unwitting Mona (played by Omoni Oboli) is a causative agent in ‘The Figurine’. She is also discerning, saying at one point, “Femi is a little funny.” But Funlola Aofiyebi-Raimi as the vivacious, irrepressible Linda Chukwu, is the woman that carries the movie.

She delivers a slap with panache, then adjusts her designer bodice, corking her head just so, for good measure. Like Julianne Moore’s character in ‘The Hand That Rocks The Cradle’, it is Linda that watches out for her fragile friend, Mona.

Enter Ramsey Nouah

One of The Figurine’s greatest assets is its biggest star – Ramsey Nouah. As Femi Badmus-Kalejaiye, Nouah transforms from a clumsy geek into a debonair babe-magnet, then transforms again. It is a career defining performance.

Ramsey Nouah in the closing segment of ‘The Figurine’ is as unforgettable as Jack Nicholson at the end of ‘The Shinning’.

Yinka Edwards’ photography is to be credited for the look and feel of ‘The Figurine’; the Camp Araromire location shots are also quite impressive. However, for a film in which characters talk simultaneously in English and Yoruba, it might have helped if the subtitles did not disappear halfway into the film.

Mercifully, the action needs no translation by then. It is good to see that Nigerian films are waking up to the benefits of product placements, but the MicCom Golf scene, while underscoring Sola and Femi’s lives of luxury, is a tad overdone.

It would have been regrettable if Oyelami, a noted traditionalist, were to appear in a film that demonised carved images, especially in a society where imported religions have impacted negatively on artefacts. It is perhaps the reason his character says: “They are not possessed. You may not cast them out. These relics, they are historical, not diabolical.”

Thriller night

The viewer will do well to remember Oyelami’s words as the action unfolds. For this is not your run-of-the-mill Nollywood film; nothing about ‘The Figurine’ falls into the mould of clichéd melodrama. Afolayan’s film is a genuine thriller masquerading as a supernatural mystery.

It comes with a sucker-punch, and provides the biggest film shock you are likely to get this year. “Why are they showing this kind of film here?” asks one worried viewer at the screening, as things start to go bump in the night.

While Nigerian viewers are accustomed to masterful shocks in Hollywood films, home-grown efforts are expected to be predictable – not so for ‘The Figurine’.

In a stunning finale, things come to a head at house number 237 Beach Road, Island. Like a werewolf on a silver night, a person or a thing will go on rampage under the full moon, and God help anyone in its path. The Figurine will wow you, and stun you. You’ll want to see it again, to connect the dots.