MOVIE REVIEW

TITLE: White Waters
DIRECTOR: Izu Ojukwu
PRODUCERS: Ify Dozie, Ngozi Nkwoji and Tokunbo Adodo
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Amstel Malta
GUAGE: VHS
STARRING: Joke Silva, Rita Dominic and O.C Ukeje
YEAR OF PRODUCTION/RELEASE: 2007/2008

***

White waters, no doubt is a reference point in the present-day Nigerian movie industry, and definitely will be, for some time to come. Sponsored by Amstel Malta, the movie clearly attests to the emerging fact that the Nigerian industry has an avalanche deposit of yet untapped whiz kids who would not only dictate the tempo and coloration of moviedom in Africa but who would also resituate Nigeria from the position of quantity producer to that of quality producer.

The movie stars veteran Joke Silva, Rita Dominic and O.C Ukeje, winner of the TV reality show tagged AMBO 3 (that is, Amstel Malta Box Office, 3rd edition) created and sponsored, of course by the same Amstel Malta. White waters tells the story of Melvin (Ukeje), who was forced into perpetual loneliness by his parents as a result of his seeming psychological deficiency in academic learning. Out of frustration borne out of his inability to learn anything in school, the mother and the step father concluded to stop wasting more money on a boy who is not only slow at almost every conceivable thing, but equally unrepentantly unreceptive. To save her marriage, the mother (Augusta Isaac) decides to ‘bundle and dump’ her little boy in the village in the care of her own mother (Joke Silva), who’s asthmatic.

As he grows up to become a man, Melvin is always found keeping to himself, save for one little fish which he keeps as a means of killing boredom. He christened the tilapia, ‘loneliness’. Day in day out, he does nothing except to help grandma look after her pets (rams and poultry) and occasionally helps her fetch her drugs from the village doctor, Doctor Maria (Olajumoke Olatunbosun), whenever grandma has attacks.

Meanwhile, an athletic team is busy in the same town preparing for state and national sports festival. Banji (Hoodmsuk), the most promising in the team, has a soft spot in his heart for Norlah (Rita Dominic), who is also an athlete in the same team, although a university student who’s father’s retirement and national strike by university lecturers have compelled to relocate to the village. This same Norlah, in return, has a soft spot for, wait for this, Melvin!

Every now and then, members of the team have always been arrested by the presence of one gentle village chap, who always substitutes walking for running at every given opportunity. Besides, Melvin, to them is an unrepentant introvert who’ll not talk to anyone in the whole village, so their bewilderment get deepened as they know next to nothing about him.
His unusual display of raw athletic talent attracted the chief coach (Tony Ofili) to Melvin. He found his ways to drag him into the team, against all opposition, especially from the ‘super star’ Banji, who sees a prospective enemy and a challenger in Melvin.

After a robbery attack on Norlah some days back, her expensive wristwatch is found among Melvin’s kits. The whole team follows him home for further search. To the chagrin of all, every other item that was stolen from Norlah, including her mother’s international passport, digital camera, and her purse gets discovered in Melvin’s room. The grandma could not believe her only trusted grandson was a thief! This is despite Melvin’s open denial of the accusation.

The incident forced Melvin back into his shells and back to his fish, which has been replaced by another he calls ‘Mon Ami’. (Loneliness died as a result of his friendship with Norlah). Although, all efforts by the chief coach to get him back into the team hit the brick-wall, Melvin develops a change of mind and makes a bold return to the team, amidst shame and indignity of the highest order.

He finally succeeds in making the relay team for the state sports festival, where he eventually brings the coach –the only backbone he has- to public disgrace. Melvin disappoints the cheering crowd when the baton for the relay race carelessly drops from his grip. This led to the sack of the chief coach, and of course, the ouster of Melvin from the team. However, white waters’ dénouement revealed that it was Banji who planted the stolen items on Melvin as a means to, one, get Norlah discouraged from him (Melvin) and then two, get him destabilized in the team since he constituted a stiff opposition to him in both areas.

The fired chief coach later gets another appointment in a neighbouring state, which is also billed for the national sports festival. He literally drags Melvin along with him.
At the close of the movie, Melvin wins a national honour for the state he eventually represented at the national sports festival, beating the pompous Banji to the runners-up position.
The picture quality of the movie is highly laudable as the images that compose the production are appropriately sharp with good dosage of contrast. The colour separation is unlike what obtains in many Nigerian movies, even of the contemporary industry. This is a clear indication that the lightings for White waters were handled by a team that understands the imperatives of lightings in filmmaking.

Same can be said of the audio quality as the sounds were not only audible, but also impressive.
In the area of dialogue, the production crew obviously made an attempt to make the artistes (especially Banji and Hammed) sound like typical (core) Africans, say of Kenyan, Mauritanian or Zambian accent. This is not too good for a movie which makes its audience believe that the events took place in contemporary Nigeria. Since names like Banji, Osa, Emeka and so forth as well as Nigerian car plate numbers are used, it shows that the story was set in Nigeria, hence no need to make the characters sound foreign. The artistes should also share out of the blame.
Continuity wise, the crew did a good job except for some flaws here and there. For an instance, the scene where younger Melvin was to transform into a man has a poor continuity. The character was putting on a greenish and longer short as at the time grandma sent her to Dr. Maria, but along the way, the short became shorter and turned blue! Haba, Movie magic?! Even if the director wanted to indicate that the lad was gradually growing along the way, he could have had the whole costumes (both the short and knickers) changed entirely.

Another avoidable but very grievous flaw occurs in the scene where Norlah came to visit Melvin at home. She saw the printed and elegantly framed picture which she took of Melvin on the night her stuffs were stolen, sitting conspicuously on the only table in the room. Does it mean that Melvin has not sighted the frame all this while before Norlah’s appearance? Or could Norlah have believed that the rustic Melvin had the picture developed and framed, all by his intuition? Where? When? How?

Although a minute error of carelessness, but the continuity manager, the director or even the editor –as the time of postproduction- should have observed that the boom mike used on location was actually reflecting on the sunshade worn by Banji in the scene where Norlah’s Silver wristwatch was found on Melvin. The crew could have, at least substituted the shot for another good one in the scene. Definitely, that was not the only one taken for the sceen! Abi?

The dialogue, as tight as it sounds, has a number of pitfalls. The most prominent and most illogical was Hammed’s line in the scene where the athletes were talking about Melvin, who was running by, at the time a training session just ended. According to Hammed who seems to know more about Melvin in the team, Melvin dropped out of the same secondary school Hammed attended. Hammed even went ahead to inform us (the audience) that Melvin was nicknamed ‘speed racer’ back then in SS2. Now, the questions: was Melvin not forced out of school at the primary school level? How come Hammed knows much about him? What secondary school is he talking about?

The location (Nassarawa state) chosen for the shoots was another plus for the producer. The lush vegetation which served as a very good background for scenes, especially during the training scenes, is a way of promoting Nigeria as a good tourist spot in the world. Kudos, Izu and the gang!

Also, the photographic creativity of Izu Ojukwu who doubles as artistic director and a director of photography (DOP) should be applauded. It is simply superlative of this wonderful man to give us the picture of the scene where Norlah contracted barbers to transform Melvin. The use of mirror to establish the new ‘born again’ Melvin, is quite admirable.

A good movie no doubt, white waters proves bookmakers wrong that indeed, Nigeria still has good heads in the industry. On the overall, the movie should be applauded and of course, scolded in certain areas.

It is a must watch for lovers of good movies.