Many times I have wondered over and over again: who writes the scripts for our movies?
Ever since I attained adulthood, I have searched earnestly to see one Ghanaian movie that educates me about Ghana. That is to say, a movie that is truly Ghanaian. But no, I am hopefully yet to see one and I doubt if I ever will because I have completely lost interest in watching Ghanaian movies.
Why? Because the stories don’t look anything like me or any of my friends, my mum or my dad, my next door neighbor or my colleague at work, the market woman or the girl who runs after the trotro in the scorching sun; they look like stories of a different place set in a different time in history.
The contents? As if they were written by students who have just entered the university and are being lectured on Creative Writing 101.
I was happily delighted one day at the salon when a Ghanaian movie was showing and it looked interesting. Just when I was about to ask my hairdresser for the title of the movie, a scene came on of a fetish priest asking a man to bring his pregnant wife for money rituals.
I was shocked to the core because, for me, that marked the end of the movie, literally.
I returned to reading my novel while what seemed like the rest of the movie played on. How on earth did a beautiful movie like that get spoiled with a storyline completely alien to the story itself; I kept thinking to myself.
As fate will have it, I sat in a trotro that same day, on my way home from the salon. There, another Ghanaian movie was showing. Here, I must say Nana Ama McBrown is one of the very best actresses Ghana will ever know albeit her directors may be complete armatures.
Anytime I happen to come by a movie which features her, I can’t help but steal a glance at the movie for a second or two. I hope she gets the best directors someday. In this movie, she was playing the role of a dump young girl which, of course, she played to perfection.
I was getting excited but that excitement was short-lived. All of a sudden, from nowhere in the movie, there was a scene with “witches” coming out from some forest. Not again, I murmured to myself. Not again. I returned to my novel, sadly.
So today, as I type this, I’m wondering again to myself if I am the only one who feels this way. If I am, then I am the problem and I shall no longer raise the issue again. But if I am not, then let’s join hands in finding solutions to our movie industry.
For one thing, I always switch stations anytime a local television station begins showing a Ghanaian movie at home, especially, when my nieces and nephews are watching. I don’t want them growing up thinking what they are seeing is Ghanaian. I want them educated on the proper values and virtues of Ghana and not on witchcraft, ‘juju’, profanity, and the likes.
You watch a movie for one and a half hours and you can’t tell what the moral of the movie is. In fact, you feel you have wasted one and a half hours of your life watching something very useless.
When I was younger, I saw great Ghanaian movies like Ultimate Paradise, I Told You So, Sekina, The Saga of the Returnee and, not forgetting, the captivating stories told on Thursday Theater and Akan Drama.
These were real movies depicting the Ghanaian experience and culture. Today, I still remember the stories like they were told yesterday. Also, just around the turn of the millennium, we had great stories told in series such as the Taxi Driver which run once a week as well as Things We do For Love. These movies featured great actors and actresses, some of whom are still around today; but where exactly are they? Who wrote the scripts for those great works of art?
It’s ironical when you think about it; that those days when we didn’t have the blessing of the computer or the internet to give us information we required to make work easier, we were able to produce good quality movies but now that we have everything to our disposal, we wallow in absolute mediocrity.
I keep asking; is it the actors/actresses or it’s just the fault of bad scripts? Whatever it is, one thing is very obvious; there is certainly a lack of talent.
And do you know what makes my skin crawl? - the fact that these movies are seen globally. What will the impression of someone living in faraway Cairo, London, New York, Rio de Jenerio, Singapore or Shanghai be, if that impression were to be formed only based on the movies he or she has seen on Ghana without necessarily visiting the country? Your guess is as good as mine.
And what is this obsession we have with wanting to copy Nigerian movies? By the way, Nigerians make great movies except for a few that are completely worst. They tell their stories like it is. They make an attempt at being original. Because Nigerians will do witches and fetishes in their movies, Ghanaians will also do same for reasons that I cannot even imagine.
We copy everything including the name for the Ghana movie industry, Gallywood, named after Nigeria’s, India’s and the best movie-making continent in the whole wide world, The United States of America’s movie industries. We’ve become master copyists and therefore, a complete photocopy. Pity is, when we copy, we copy blindly.
When I see American-made movies such as The Great Debaters, The Shawshank Redemption, The Flight, The Words, etc., I can’t help but look forward to a day when I will see a Ghanaian movie, half as good as those mentioned above.
Don’t we have interesting stories too? What happened to the story of our fight for independence; what happened to stories of our brothers and sisters, who die trying to leave the shores of this country in search of greener pastures; what happened to stories of our children sold into slave trade; what happened to stories of our market women who spend days on end in the sun trying to get a little food for their children; what happened to stories of corruption in our public sectors; what happened to stories of the fight for political power; and so on and so forth.
It will be unfair if I do not give credit to people who are trying hard to change the face of these kindergarten-school movies we produce. James Ebo White, you have made Ghana proud by producing plays that carry with them good morals and Ghanaian values.
Shirley Frimpong-Manso, I am not a fun of your movies but I enjoyed The Perfect Picture. As for the rest, I think they are an exaggerated version of anything Ghanaian but, I wish you well. To Nana Ama McBrown,
I say kudos. You did a great job on Kumasi Yonko, no wonder it will always go on the list of best Ghanaian movies.
For those who haven’t seen this movie, please put it on your list of “must watch”. That is a real Ghanaian movie.
What I hope to earn by writing this critique is to bring a little sense of awareness to our writers; if we have any at all out there. We have great stories to tell and from now on, I wish to dedicate every minute of my time trying to find stories that are truly Ghanaian. Join me if you can.
