Cultural Pluralisms: Neo-Nollywood and Biyi Bandele’s Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba (2022)

ABSTRACT

In Biyi Bandele’s last feature, Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba (2022), adapted from Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, Bandele registers an awareness for the multiple film cultures that have shaped filmmaking in Nigeria. Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba is structured as a homage to the legacies of Yorùbá traveling theatricalities, while retaining the visual codes of contemporary cinema, including in the ways it co-opts traits of Western and neo-Nollywood filmmaking. In this analysis of Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba, I map the visual awareness it establishes of the legacies of filmmaking in Nigeria, while also centering the film’s thematic registers of colonial politics, cultural abjection, and gendered representations as constitutive of the colonial world in which the story is situated. I frame Bandele’s pluralistic approach as a spirited engagement with the unstable category that colonization produces for the erstwhile colonized person. That is, it is not only the characters in Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba who are forced to interplay between Yorùbá and British intellectual and cultural practices; Bandele, too, is placed in this complex interrogation, as embedded in his stylistic approach.

ABSTRACT IN YORÙBÁ

Nínú Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba, fíìmù Biyi Bamidele tí ó jé àtúnṣe eré orí ìtàgé Wọle Ṣoyinka Death and the King’s Horseman, Bamidele pàte oríṣiríṣi ìtàn àti ìlànà fíìmù síse ni orílé èdè Nàìjíríà. Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba tẹ̀lé ìlànà tíátà alárìnjó tí ó gbajúgbajà ní ilẹ̀ Yorùbá. Bi fíìmù Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba ṣe tẹ̀lé àwọn ètò tíátà alárìnjó àtijọ́, bẹ́ẹ̀ náà ní ó ṣe mú ìhùwàsí sinimá ayé òde òní. Pàápàá jùlọ, bí ó ṣe pa fíìmù òkèèrè pọ̀ mọ́ Nollywood òde òní. Nínú àtúpalẹ̀ Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba tí mo ṣe nínú ìwádìí yìí, mo fi àwọn ẹ̀kọ́ ti eré náà kọ́ wa nípa ìpìlẹ̀ fiimu ṣíṣe ní Nàìjíríà hàn pẹ̀lú bí fíìmù náà ṣe ṣe àfihàn oríṣiríṣi àkòrí bi ìjọba amúnisìn, ìṣoro tí ó kojú àṣà, àti àìdọ́gba ọ̀rọ̀ takọ-tabo tí ó jẹyọ lati ìgbà ìjọba amúnisìn. Mo fi ìdí rè múlẹ̀ wípé ìdàpọ tíátà alárìnjó, pẹ̀lú àwon ìlànà sinimá ṣíṣe ní ayé òde òní nínú Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba fi ipa tí ìjọba amúnisìn ní lórí àwọn ènìyàn tó ti fi ìgbàkan wà lábẹ́ ìṣàkóso rẹ̀ hàn wá. Nítorí ìdí èyí, kìí ṣe àwọn òṣèré inú fíìmù náà nìkan ní ó gbé ní aarin ìdàpò àṣà Yorùbá àti ti àwọn amúnisìn, olùdarí fíìmù Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba, Biyi Bandele fúnraa rẹ̀ náà wà nínú ipò yìí.

KEYWORDS:

• Biyi Bandele
• Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba: The King’s Horseman
• Nollywood
• Yorùbá traveling theater

KÓKÓ Ọ̀RỌ̀:

• Tíátà alárìnjó Yorùbá
• Nollywood òde òní
• ìṣèlú ìjọba amúnisìn
• àṣà fíìmù síse

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the help of Michael Oshindoro and Theophilus Okunlọla for collaboratively translating the abstract from English to Yorùbá.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Personal communication with Biyi Bandele, Skype, August 2020.

Additional information

Funding

This article issue is the outcome of research conducted within the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy – EXC 2052/1–390713894.