Olamide Adio and Victor Daniel make one of the simplest yet complex films. Mother, their latest short film, has all the elements of a simple love story, but it’s about a forbidden one. Known for their minimalist storytelling and thematic boldness in “What’s Left of Us”, a part of the Zikoko Life anthology series, Adio and Daniel continue to test the boundaries of emotional and moral terrain in Nigerian short cinema.
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The film begins like a quiet romance about a man who pours his affection into his courtship. After running an errand for his seamstress fiancée named Omowunmi (Bisi Ariyo), Sanni (Iyanu Ajibike) stops by her shop to give her some fruits. Omowunmi smiles as she checks the fruits, appreciating his kind gesture. However, there’s a faint undercurrent of unease that quietly signals that something troubling hides beneath the warmth of their affairs.
A pregnancy test kit Sanni brought from home sparks a conversation about pregnancy, leading to a brief unease between the lovers. Sanni shows Omowunmi the test kit, asking when she plans to tell him about the pregnancy. But Omowunmi snatches the kit and stomps inside the shop, refuting that she’s pregnant. Despite her denial, Sanni is happy that they are expecting a child. Wishing the foetus is a girl, he suggests they name her Iyabo, to honour Omowunmi’s deceased mother.
Soon, we realise that the scene above is a decoy. Beneath this surface, the film focuses on an unconventional love story. Omowunmi harbours a secret about a forbidden love neither Sanni nor we can see. She is in a relationship with her father (Ropo Ewenla), whose grief is still palpable a year after losing his wife. Through a carefully staged revelation and telling silence, we learn that an incestuous relationship has taken root between Omowunmi and her father. Perhaps that is the reason for her jitteriness about her pregnancy and relationship with Sanni. However, Sanni’s honesty and unconditional love make the revelation devastating and hard to bear.
Through the brief shots, the filmmakers resist the trap of moral sensationalism. They treat this father–daughter incest not as a lurid twist but as a slow, unconventional reality. It surfaces in detail rather than declarations: Omowunmi plays the role of a daughter and a wife to her bereaved father. These cues are never underlined for shock. Instead, they are embedded into every aspect of the story, demanding our active attention.
Despite the film’s raw feel, the performances are remarkable. Bisi Ariyo as Omowunmi captures the fractured self with precision. She’s restless when Sanni talks about her pregnancy, but calmer when she’s with her father. Still mourning the loss of his wife, Ropo Ewenla, as Omowunmi’s father, inhabits his role with chilling restraint, while Iyanu Ajibike’s Sanni exudes an earnestness that makes his eventual ignorance almost painful to watch.
In the end, Mother lingers not because of its taboo subject matter, but because of how quietly it compels us to confront love in its most disquieting forms.
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Side Musings
- The University of Ibadan Cathedral is a quiet sanctuary for worship and cinema. It’s in Tunde Kelani’s O Le Ku (1997), BB Sasore’s Breath of Life (2023), and now Mother (2024).
- The three women who simultaneously greet Omowunmi for taking care of her father are reminiscent of the witches in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. Though they won’t be called witches or weird sisters since they are Christians but their “filthy” trappings and supernatural activities set an ominous tone for the film, suggesting inter-generational transmission of incest.
- Ropo Ewenla featured in Stanley Obi’s Forbidden Love. Although I’m not sure if the movie’s plot is similar to Mother.
