Obara’m, loosely translated from the Ibo, means ‘my blood’.
It follows the story of a young lady Oluchi (played by Nancy Isime), who gets pregnant out of wedlock and, unable to figure out her own life, pins the baby on the man showing the greatest promise of a better life. It is didactic, emotional in many scenes, and the child actor Ihunnaya (Darasimi Nadi) puts up an energetic performance. It deals with grief, loss, reconciliation, childhood innocence and adulthood naivety. But one of the major themes is paternity fraud.
Obara’m movie trailer. Credit: FilmOneNG/YouTube
Having been relocated to the village, and abandoned with her grandfather Humphrey (Nkem Owoh) whom she innocently calls papa, the love child Ihunnaya discovers she is quite the talented singer.
The mother Oluchi, unable to deal with the poverty and slow pace of rural life, returns to the city. A second shot at Lagos, she thinks, would save her struggling career. Grandpa Humphrey and Ihunnaya have a beautiful father-daughter relationship, and he is the only parent the child knows because Oluchi proves yet again, that she’s not ready to be a parent and disappears.
Absent for the next decade, she only returns to her daughter’s life when tragedy strikes in the family. At this point, she is forced to come to terms with what motherhood means, and the concept of responsibility.
What this flick is rich in, is the expression of emotional qualities and human interaction – grief, love, remorse, and joy. Darasimi Nadi’s portrayal of how an innocent 10-year-old child would react and interact in the environment she finds herself is apt.
Paternity fraud is an interesting (and controversial) topic covered in this movie. The current data place Nigeria as the second highest in the world with around 30 percent of cases of this kind of fraud in the population. So, when Oluchi gleefully screams at Bolanle Ninalowo’s character that she wrapped the pregnancy around him but he was too blind to see it, we are taken aback by how remorseless that particular take is.
Fidelis (played by Deyemi Okanlawon) and Bolanle Ninalowo’s character are made out to be villains despite being the victims. One’s a man who has believed the child was his the entire time, while the other is someone who, after 11 years, is married with kids but is expected to disrupt the family dynamics to accommodate a 10-year-old daughter whom he didn’t know about until a few weeks ago.
Written by Stephen Okonkwo and directed by Kayode Kasum, Obara’m evokes the vibe of a typical feel good Nollywood movie but with lots of music. While it is tagged a musical, it can be more accurately referred to as a music themed flick.
It begins like a musical but doesn’t sustain it, and this points to a lack of definition and technique refinement. The renditions are fairly well executed in some scenes but it could have done without some of the scenes where the use of music fell flat. In those scenes, the story seemed to just pause. A good attempt to be sure, but a great musical would have the songs moving the plot along.
Apparently, to play the character of Oluchi, Nancy Isime got a voice coach that was not paid for by the production. It shows dedication on the actress’s part; however, the obvious lip syncing and autotune effects make for a mixed experience.
Continuity is a problem as some of the characters fail to age even after 11 years. Oluchi and Fidelis can literally be seen spotting the same hairstyle after a decade!
For this flick, an 8/9 track album was produced. And work was done with several talented music artists from Waje, The Cavemen, Angeloh, to Nkem Owoh, who is also a singer.
Obara’m is, so far, the most expensive film made by Film Tribe. Despite what sometimes feels like an overstretching of the plot, it is overall a feel good movie with a happy ending. You should see it in the cinemas!
Didi Dan-Asisah is an art enthusiast and critic. She lives in Lagos.
Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.
