52 MOVIES FROM 52 COUNTRIES - #9 NIGERIA

This is a part of an ongoing project in which I watch one movie from a different country every week. 

RUNNING TIME: 91 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Ishaya Bako

WRITTEN BY:
Genevieve Nnaji (story)
Ishaya Bako
Emil B. Garuba

STARING
Genevieve Nnaji
Oris Erhuero

WHERE CAN YOU FIND IT?: Netflix Instant. I actually discovered this movie on this website: "10 African Movies to Watch on Netflix." One can theoretically buy it on Amazon but at the moment they appear to be out of stock.

PLOT: An estranged couple discusses their marriage on a road trip. During the long drive, memories and secrets are revealed, threatening the future of their relationship.

MEMORABLE MOMENT: When the audience sees the couple (Genevieve Nnaji and Oris Erhuero) together for the first time. Victoria, the wife, has recently arrived from the airport after being away for three weeks and is surprised to find her husband, Izu, still living in their house. Very little is said but the tension is almost unbearable.

 Spoilers Below
There is a scene early in the film when Izu drives home drunk. He swerves into the wrong lane and the windshield is filled with the oncoming car's headlights. In the next scene, Izu wakes Victoria at four in the morning and insists that they leave immediately for his uncle's funeral. The rest of the movie follows the couple on their road trip. Through heated conversation and flashbacks, the audience learns the secrets they have kept from one another. The film ends (sorry, I warned there were spoilers) with the two of them in a hotel room where they forgive one another. 

Then, Victoria wakes up. She is in a hospital room. Izu lies in the bed, dying from injuries he received in the car accident that took place at the beginning of the film.

Everything that took place after the car accident, the road trip, the conversations and the eventual reconciliation was all a dream.

 I'm just going to come out and say it. I've always hated movies/TV episodes that end with "It was a dream the whole time." And yes, I'm looking at you, Wizard of Oz. Even when I was a kid I didn't care for that "children's classic" because nothing matters in it. Dorothy could have been eaten by the cowardly lion or the flying monkeys or could have just stayed in Munchkin Land and she would have still woken up safe in Kansas (where Ms. Gulch still wants to put down poor Toto).

I was initially just as frustrated with The Road to Yesterday, but as I watched the film's conclusion I realized that it uses the twist to its advantage. This is a very dream-like movie, not in a surreal David Lynch-ian sort of way, but in the sense that the film moves back and forth through time. Not even the flashbacks take place in chronological order. There are moments where one has to stop and wonder if they are watching the character's past, present, or even future.

Also, one has to wonder if Victoria's vision really was only a dream. She wakes from her long sleep with her head resting beside her dying husband's body. One could interpret that Izu's spirit lingered long enough to go on this "road trip" in order to work out their conflicts before they parted. This farewell is the meat of the story. Had the film been about Victoria avoiding mortal danger the dream element would not have worked because by the end the audience would have realized she was safe in the hospital room. However, she is facing emotional rather than physical stakes. This is a conflict that can be worked out in a dream.

Even during the movie the audience was given the impression that Victoria and Izu would probably not work out in the long run. A "happily ever after" ending would ring false.  Instead, this is a story of two souls parting. It is too late for them to bid farewell in the physical world so they do it in the spiritual.

The "it was a dream the whole time" ending is (thankfully) not used as much these days as it was in the first half of the twentieth century. While I don't know if I'll ever find it a totally satisfying conclusion, The Road to Yesterday is one film that uses this ending to its advantage to make the film more unique.