Mami Wata (2023) ‘Fantasia Fest’ Review: In the West African village of Iyi, the eponymous water deity holds sway through its intermediary in the personage of Mama Ewe (Rita Edochie). She is the one who villagers go to resolve crises; her healing touch is a power everyone swears by. Director C.J. Obasi begins his film with a glimpse into the tussle between Mama Ewe and her daughter, Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh), who takes issue with Mama’s self-proclaimed conviction in sticking to a balance in the world.
Zinwe is devout, but she cannot fathom why her mother would refuse to help at the behest of an aggrieved woman’s desperate pleas. The script develops this mother-daughter tiff quickly. Mama offers no explanations either but insists Zinwe will understand her actions in due time. One night, Zinwe steals Mama’s totem and flees.
The first signs of rupture arise when Mama is unable to nurse a dying boy who has been brought to her. Aspersions on Mama’s powers and the questioning of its veracity are cast by a few members of the village, spearheaded by Jabi. He is vehement and fierce in reasoning with the villagers that Mama’s powers are a sham and that all of them are being duped out of their money and offerings in exchange for Mama and her family living in a well-maintained settlement.
Jabi demands an interrogation of the status quo, the privileges Mama experiences in exchange for her supposed divine benediction. He enquires why the money pooled in by the villagers for Mama is not funneled instead for the development of schools and hospitals in Iyi, which would be of greater social benefit. The thrumming of this unrest with Mama’s position in Iyi grows palpably but explodes only after a stranger by the name of Jasper (Emeka Amakeze) washes up on Iyi’s shores.
Mama and especially her adopted daughter, Prisca (Evelyn Ily Juhen), restore him to good spirits. Prisca falls for him but soon discovers Jasper’s ulterior nefarious motives of teaming up with the island separatists, led by Jabi and usurping Iyi from Mama Ewe’s hold. The island comes under threat as a new order shifts into gear to wrench control and assume authority.
The film reveals its preoccupations fairly early; the classic clash between indigenous knowledge systems and interventionist Western sciences making their incursions upon the island village is resolutely hammered in the screenplay. The beats are also predictable. Jasper is modeled as the quintessential Western colonizer, attempting to hijack the power relations and ascending the line of authority. He quickly supplants the separatist outfit and moves in for the kill.
The island is overtaken by disarray and rampant fear as the leader they granted mileage to receives their contributions only to build and accumulate his defense personnel. Violence becomes the way of life. The fog of promises quickly lifts, and out emerges into clear view a thinly masked betrayal of the vowed change. The revolution heralded by the men who discredited Mama Ewe’s principles and philosophies as hopelessly antiquated and insincere turns out to be an inversion of colonial oppression.
Evelyne Ily Juhen in Mami Wata (2023)Obashi has a skill for both paranoia and a dreamy romanticism, aided by the extraordinary monochromatic camerawork by Lilis Soares, which deservingly fetched Soares a special jury prize at Sundance earlier this year. The compositions are elegant, dipped in a strange reverie, especially those scenes that unfurl at night. There are these gorgeous dissolves into the rippling waves of the sea and landscape, embossed on spectacular closeups of faces with patterned paint, that took my breath away.
As much as the film reflects a dogged, deeply vulnerable anti-colonial resistance politics firing its narrative movements, it is also about its women finding belief and solidarity in one another to propel support for their movement. Prisca and Zinwe do not initially see eye to eye. The film traces their coming together while respecting their individual choices with their flaws and failings.
Zinwe is adamant about her beliefs and gradually grows to engage with other perspectives, which might not always concur with her path of action but whose end goal is likewise geared toward the betterment of her village and its inhabitants. Similarly, Prisca learns to realize her unflinching commitment to her mother’s philosophies would perhaps need a tempering slant in keeping with the immense opposition mounted by Iyi’s incendiary elements spurring skepticism about Mami Wata.
Matriarchy and the myriad forms of femininity, in its interface with the divine, form the focal point of the film. Obasi invests the women in his film with agency, charisma, and compelling liveliness. Evelyn Juhen is fierce and holds the film together in a performance that immediately pulls the viewer in.
In its vigilance against epistemic ruptures imposed by the Western intrusive forces, pushing itself upon the fabric of the village, what does the critical question of staying untouched by forces touting themselves as progress and development mean and entail? The trajectory Obasi takes is not remarkably unconventional, but it importantly foregrounds a vocabulary and dialect that strongly reaffirms its challenges to Western canons of received knowledge, as well as hemming together Soares’ ethereal, entrancing visuals with Tunde Jegede’s drum-heavy music.
They combine to create a transporting atmosphere. The film embraces the mystical with reverence, awe, and complete surrender. So the cynicism that props up as a hostile force is never allowed legitimacy. We know it’s an aberration and will not sustain. Obasi’s unerring confidence in his rooted storytelling tradition keeps the viewer captivated, even while the pacing flags in places. This is a filmmaker with a sure grasp of mood and tone, conjuring a sense of sublime inscrutability with an easy, agile effect.
Mami Wata screened at the Fantasia Festival 2023.
Mami Wata (2023) Movie Link: IMDb
Mami Wata (2023) Movie Cast: Evelyne Ily Juhen, Uzoamaka Aniunoh, Emeka Amakeze
