WatchSeeLookView At The LFF 2019 - The Lost Okoroshi

Second film of Day 4 and next up we have the sort of film that going to a festival is all about.

The Lost Okoroshi
Dir. Abba Makama / Dur. 94 mins / Country. Nigeria
Festival Strand:- Laugh
In A Nutshell:- Security guard Raymond awakes one morning to find himself transformed into an ancestral spirit, the okoroshi...

The Good:- This made me think of the sort of film I would have made back in the days when I had delusions of filmmaking - not in terms of subject but in terms of style. It’s a lo-fi low budget affair that decides to embrace and play with that guerilla feel to a lot of the scenes and make it into a virtue. Seun Ajayi is a lively and engaging lead as Raymond - it’s almost a shame that he spends much of the film covered up in costume. The costumes for the okoroshi and the other ancestral spirits are great - bright and appealing. It is very funny in places but also has a certain air of creepiness about it - in places, the aural design reminded me a little of David Lynch who often uses sound to create an ominous sensation. There are also some nice moments of humour where the subtitles were far more formal than the dialogue on screen (although I’m not sure if that was intentional or not). The squabbling members of IPSSHRR (The Igbo People’s Secret Society for Heritage, Restoration and Reclamation) also have a distinct whiff of Life Of Brian’s revolutionaries about them. Although billed a s comedy (and it is funny in a lot of places), the film itself has more of the structure of a horror film about it.

The Bad:- The extended coda with the psychiatrist at the end felt fairly flat - I get what they were lining up with that but it felt like a lot of dull exposition which they could probably have left out.

The Verdict:- Exactly the sort of thing that film festivals are for - an odd mix of comedy, horror and satire with a guerilla filmmaking feel to it and not the sort of thing you’re likely to find down the local multiplex.

The Venue / Intro / Q&A:- Back to the ICA for this one and it’s already become my least favourite venue in terms of comfort (very functional with all seats on the same level making it likely that the people in front of you are going to block the screen). Director Abba Makama was on hand for a Q&A but unfortunately I couldn’t stick around for that as I needed to make my way over to the Southbank for the next film...