The Yoruba Film Sector And Its Fall from Grace
The Yoruba film sector began to exist way before the entire Nigerian film industry became fully developed and known as Nollywood. This faction began in the Nigerian pre-independence era with Yoruba-speaking stage actors and dramatists who founded travelling theatre groups that consisted of members who played roles, besides acting, in ensuring the success of a stage play.
These actors often led their theatre groups to perform plays on different stages in many parts of the country. They were prominent for entertaining their audience while passing across a clear message. Some of these actors are 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, some of the founders of the travelling theatre groups began to shift from stage acting to film production. They began to adapt some of their early plays into movies. This era is known as the Golden Age of the Yoruba film sector. The transition during this time 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 Ayanmo.
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 films 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, the films 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 films being produced. This worsened as the years progressed and has not gotten any better. Now, the English-speaking sector of the Nigerian film Industry now known as Nollywood has taken over, while the Yoruba sector trails far behind.
Poor storytelling is one of the major problems the Yoruba sector is faced with and this manifests in many films 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 filmmakers are failing in this aspect. It is now very common to see movies in which neither their climaxes nor denouement are identifiable. 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. This is not to say that the movies of that time are perfect, but the actions in them often flowed into one another unlike now that viewers hardly watch Yoruba films without, after spotting loopholes, questioning the techniques of narration. All these have undoubtedly turned the Yoruba sector into a subject of ridicule.
Today, there are many stories to tell as different happenings are springing up in the Nigerian society every day. Unfortunately, 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 ritualists, 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 films are often didactic, regardless of the form of storytelling which could be a satire, comedy, or tragedy. However, things have taken major turns as the films 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 films that are set in the Yoruba kingdom, palace maids are made to dress like Igbo maidens. It is glaring that the actors, producers, and directors, have lost touch with what it means to create a unique body of art, rather, they are merely satisfying their hunger for the screen.
In conclusion, the preceding Yoruba dramatists and filmmakers did a great job of sensitizing their audience with the convincing visual storytelling in their films, while the filmmakers of recent times are also doing a good job of descending from that zenith to a pitiable rock bottom.
