A father’s shadow - and the shadow of a Nigerian coup

Daniel Nelson

The set-up is disarmingly simple: “Two young brothers explore Lagos with their estranged father during the 1993 Nigerian elections crisis, witnessing both the city’s magnitude and their father’s daily struggles as political unrest threatens their journey home.”

But My Father’s Shadow is much more than that. It’s a moving story about love and realism, about fathers and children, about the meaning of family in developing countries where the state cannot be relied on for anything.

It’s simple and complex, austere and wistful, intimate and resplendent, direct and elliptical.

Its heart and depth are unsurprising because the director is British-Nigerian Akinola Davies Jr., who developed the script with his brother after their father died when they were young.

The fourth character in the film is Lagos, in all its manic bustle, drive, diversity, humanity, desperation, mouthiness, its life-affirming joy. The village-raised boys stare at its wonders and oddities, and catch half-understood conversations, mostly in Naijalingo, between their father and a stream of relatives and acquaintances, who treat him with impressive warmth and respect.

Their father, in an increasingly pensive mood, opens the door a little on feelings and beliefs he has never previously discussed with the boys. They are growing up, and glimpsing — but not understanding — the human frailties that complicate life. Who, for example, is the woman dad is furtively talking to in the bar? The boys know but don’t know: it’s adult life and vaguely troubling.

A fifth character is the background music. Davies uses sinister, stressful soundtrack to rack up the tension that is not overtly clear from the words and actions of the story. I find it overdone, but for many Lagosians, portents are real.

The day in Lagos turns out to be of enormous significance not only for the boys but for the country as a whole: it was the day the 1993 election was annulled, and the frightening but understandable furious reactions in the bar where father and sons are sitting triggers a dramatic twist to the film’s final minutes.