AFRIFF: To adapt a book is a struggle of ideas, to adapt a Soyinka book is a struggle of ideas and style, to adapt The Man Died is a struggle of ideas, style, form and history. Awam Amkpa directs the Bode Asiyanbi screenplay, drawing from the same-titled book and other memoirs by Soyinka: “Ibadan Penkelemes Years” and “You Must Set Forth At Dawn”. Amkpa’s The Man Died takes this struggle in stride, sometimes falling into the pits of Nigeria`s many histories but often rising with a strong sense of story and character.
Standing at a staggering two hours and forty minutes, The Man Died chronicles Soyinka’s time in prison after he visits the then-Republic of Biafra to see Ojukwu and other leaders, his musings on politics, history, religion and culture and how he grapples with his state-sanctioned execution. One of the earlier scenes reveals a table sprawled with Soyinka’s books and news articles as he sits pensively, a brief scene that plays into Soyinka`s life’s work; the constant melding of literature and politics, the embrace of the writer’s existence as political.
Framed by voiceovers from Soyinka and excerpts of radio broadcasts, the film functions like a pastiche of Soyinka’s life during that time with flashbacks to his earlier life. The Nobel Laureate is played with a vibrant freedom by Wale Ojo who gets Soyinka`s physicality on a granular level but takes some creative detours with other parts of the characterization like his voice. This juxtaposition frees the acting, untethering it from any awkwardness that could have existed. The rest of the cast holds up the reality of that time but Sam Dede shines as the villain, Yisa the Police Investigator. Two major scenes he shares with Ojo are framed by smoking as a power play: the first one sees them on equal footing while the next one has him towering over Ojo as the smoke clouds his fallen face.
Sometimes the film’s dialogue is bogged down by history. Dates, facts and figures are never fashioned into good dialogue and just parroted awkwardly with little personal inflections. This makes scenes that should hold some gravitas melt into a puddle, but the film makes up for this with a dynamic visual sensibility. The night lighting is one of its strongest moments as many things occur in the dark, with faces lit liberally by car inner lights, overhead lamps and headlights to capture reactions keeping the story alive in the dark.
As The Man Died is a collage of Soyinka’s life, it is also a collage of ideas. The role of academia in political struggle beyond theoretical propositions, the lack of clear lines of oppression as seen in the jail conversation with other inmates and the way violent resolutions like war only serve as an erasure of identity in the name of victory.
Much of this film is a capturing of a part of Soyinka`s life but for a man so entwined in Nigeria’s history, it is also a capturing of that history and it doesn’t fail to take a stand, calling the atrocities committed against Igbo people a genocide more than once. With that sense, you come out with sympathy for the Biafran struggle of that time but sadness for the present existence of Nigeria, a nation that is ever-forgetting and never learning.
For a book that is an amalgamation of styles, part stream of consciousness and born from an almost metaphysical observation that solitude brings, The Man Died manages to capture all of that in its duration with a level of fictionalization that doesn’t take much away from its essence: a personal history that doubles as a nation’s political history.
The Man Died premiered at the 2024 Africa International Film Festival.
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Side Musings
- The bromance between Wole and Christopher Okigbo was so cute. Need a whole film about that.
- The film is more funny than you’d think. Ropo Ewenla as Obasanjo appears for a short scene that seems so on brand for the man.
- Wole still found time for a prison romance while he was fighting oppression. A focused man.
