Analysis Of The Battle Of Musanga

950 Words2 Pages

Bolaji Dawodu’s 647-frame Battle of Musanga is characteristically one of Nollywood’s most popular epics on the return to the origins. It is an attempt at the historical reconstruction of life in Africa before and after the first contacts of the people of Arochukwu with the white man. The film is a conscious attempt at piecing together fragmentary episodes of the great Battle of Musanga from one generation that lived it to another that knows nothing about it. It is a grandfather’s effort to recount to his grandchildren, gathered around the fire, bits and pieces of what his memory could piece together of the battle between the colonial British army and the people’s army in the wake of the abduction of an Irish missionary who was used for ritual …show more content…

It is also an attempt to promote the values that once characterized Africa. The film’s intrigue is characterized by over-dramatization in too many wordy scenes and endless speeches, wailings and weeping etc. It is also an Africa in revolt against age-old traditions like that of throwing twins into the forest immediately they were born. What defines the film’s mnemonic thrust is the fact that it is a conscious search to piece together the past and reconstruct memory for the good of posterity. The old man, considered as a reservoir of wisdom in a prevalently oral culture, has the duty to pass on knowledge to posterity through the normal gatherings around the fire. In recounting the story of the Battle of Musanga, he makes a lot of added commentaries that mirror the director’s way of communicating his convictions to the implied audience. They are descriptive, moralizing and philosophical comments that do nothing but embroider the story, taking its toll on the time of the narrative and the cohesiveness of the entire intrigue.
The real story, after all these preambles, starts when the first white man comes with a bicycle to meet the people who take to flight. What follows that first failed contact was the missionary era, which ended in the kidnapping of the Irish priest that provoked the war. Part of that story is also another digression which draws our attention to the practice of forced marriages and the intrigues of false accusations in the villages that caused the death of innocent

Open Document