AFRIFF: Revenge is a dish best served cold and the Burna Boy-produced 3 Cold Dishes serves you three incomplete meals that leave you wanting more. Directed by Oluseyi Asurf (Hakkunde), the film tells the story of three women from Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, and Benin who reunite twenty years after surviving human trafficking to enact revenge on the men who ruined their lives. Starting with the needed kinetic energy of an action thriller, it stumbles on its devices and characters dissipating whatever energy it created.
Split into three chapters and narrated by Mama Janice who knew the girls from their time together (played with spunk by Amelie Mbaye) talking to a journalist (Femi Jacobs with a beret and interesting French accent), these two framing and pacing devices often awkwardly move the story forward and distract from the core. At some point in her narration, she notices it’s raining outside and somehow uses that mundane observation to pivot to an important military raid that is a turning point in the story—a forced transition that highlights one of the many clumsy ways the story pushes itself forward.
The ladies that form the essence of the story are played with different levels of expertise across different ages. Ruby Akubueze (Ijogbon) as young Esosa is wearing her pleas and fear expertly. Their dynamic as teenagers is truer than those of adulthood, even in its glimpses.
As they grow and are replaced, the acting cracks. Osas Ighodaro (Man of God) is uneven as an older Esosa, Fat Toure (Cacao) is unwieldy with her rage while Maud Guerard is working with husks of a character. Among the men, Wale Ojo (Breath of Life) gives the better performance, his signature voice blending into the stark evilness of Uncle Bankole.
We get snapshots of the ladies’ lives and how the promise of a better future—to two of them at least— lands them in the hands of the traffickers. Esosa’s uncle takes her away from home so she can come back to take care of her brother; Fatouma is promised a football career in Paris by her pastor; and Giselle, arguably dealt the worst of cards, is a victim of a broken family’s spirituality—there was never a promise of a better future for her but instead she is plagued by a vague spiritual entity that is never truly explained and often feels tacked on to the character and story. These stories are moving on paper and there is sometimes convincing imagery used in the film, but a disconnect still exists because of the acting and awkward pacing. The most important section of these girls’ growth is summarised in a lazily animated sequence, removing us from the physicality of the women and their trials.
The most interesting parts of 3 Cold Dishes are the ways the women are unable to escape the web of male violence. This helps place the film in the continent-wide human trafficking conversation from a new perspective. They are no longer under the boot of the brutal abuse of trafficking but they serve General Banda’s criminal cause, especially Fatouma, moving drugs across the borders and keeping his empire running. It’s a kind of freedom that comes with a price, so is it really freedom?
Their bodies are tied to this service and their minds bloated with thoughts of revenge but the film never gets into the messy innards of their minds. At the climax, there is a lot of screaming as a kind of emotional catharsis but since we never connected to them, it feels contrived.
The places the film takes us are often beautiful and the flow between French and English steeped in reality. We’re taken from Côte d’Ivoire to Benin Republic, from an abandoned plane serving as their base (framed with dazzling sunlight) to the desert bare and a canvas for a car versus motorcycles sequence that underwhelms. The director’s familiarity with Lagos makes the scenes there more dynamic, hopping from building to building with ease. It’s the film’s strongest suit with gritty blues and yellows lighting the girls’ brutal early days.
The film concludes in a rousing satisfying ending and then concludes again in an anticlimactic fashion placing the awkward spirituality mentioned earlier front and centre. 3 Cold Dishes stands on the precipice of exploring how a lifetime of trauma can break the mind but never takes the leap, preventing it from becoming more than it presents.
3 Cold Dishes screened as the opening film at the 14th edition of the African International Film Festival. It will open in Nigerian cinemas from November 7.
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Side Musings
- Tinubu makes a cameo in this film on a news broadcast, do whatever you want with that information.
- Never trust a pastor who has his hair in a bun, he is definitely up to no good.
- Mama Janice is so proud of her breasts, and it makes for a fun character performance.
