Movie Night in Malawi

The Prelude

I was eating dinner in the Rise & Shine Diner the other day. It's a frequent haunt of mine (I think I've become addicted to the nsima with beef relish. soooo tasty).

I wasn't in any hurry, so I sat around for a bit visiting with my friend Nelli and Zealous, the niece of the owners of the diner. Zealous is in town visiting over the Easter break, which lasts three weeks in Malawi. The diner was pretty quiet - this was around 5:30 pm, which is a bit early for supper in Malawi.

While we were chatting, someone put in a Nigerian movie.

A bit about Nigerian Movies

When I say "Nigerian movies" I do mean movies made in Nigeria. But leaving it at that is like describing Bollywood movies as "movies made in India." Nigerian movies are their own genre.

Sometimes referred to as Naija movies or Nollywood movies, Nigerian films are usually English-speaking, multi-part movies with slapstick comeday and crazy melodrama. They often involve witchcraft and/or the tension between 'traditional' and 'modern' Africa. They often come in 4 or 5 or 6 in 1 packs of DVDs, so you can watch the whole series of film in one go.

I could say more on these lovely gems... but I won't. Instead I'll tell you about the one that was flipped on in the Rise & Shine.

Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact title of this one... I think it was "Aziwa II."

The Plot
This Nigerian movie was a remake of Pocahontas. And not just any Pocahontas - this one was based specifically on the Disney animated feature.

The film starts with a 'tribal' princess (you can tell she's tribal because she's scantily clad and has her face painted) talking with the 'foreign' prince (you can tell he's foreign because he's wearing an orange poncho and a matching fishing hat). She's begging him to leave because she loves him but her father wants to make war. The foreign prince insists that he's just here to search for the "herb of life" and doesn't want to fight.

They are, of course, interrupted by a gigantic muscle-bound warrior and his posse. Cue the posse of foreigners with guns, who shoot one of the warriors. The foreign prince-guy is captured and, after being sentenced to death in front a a disgraced and hysterical tribal princess, thrown in a bamboo cage.

The princess visits him in the night and they have a touching exchange. At one point, the foreign prince says, "I would rather die tomorrow than live a thousand years without knowing you" (sound familiar?).

Anyway, the execution is interrupted. First the princess realizes that she'd rather die than live without her foreign prince guy and throws herself between the executioner and the prince. Then the prince's posse show up with their guns.

But the prince is betrayed! One of his men shoots him in the chest (it turns out later that they're planning on making off with a bunch of gold that they must have found in part one).

Luckily, him getting shot by his own people causes the tribal king to sympathize with this foreign prince-guy that his daughter is in love with and the village healer brings the prince-guy back to life using the 'herb of life.'

When the prince guy wakes up, the tribespeople give him a big bundle of the herb of life and he rushes back to his kingdom - apparently, he was off on this herb of life quest to save the life of his father, king of the orange poncho people. He strides into the throne room just in time to accuse his would-be murderers of treason as they're telling the king about his tragic death at the hands of the 'savages.' Huzzah!

But it's not over yet - he's left his tribal princess to pine after him and has to go back and sweep her off her feet properly. But the Queen Mom REALLY doesn't want him to go. And, back in the wilderness, the father of our distraught heroine seems to think that this infatuation with the foreign prince-guy is just a 'phase' and is trying to fix up his daughter with the muscle-bound warrior from the beginning. Ooh... riveting.

The End?

Just as the Prince finished telling his fiancee Princess (not to be confused with the tribal princess - this one is wearing an elaborate silver and blue dress and doesn't have her face painted), "I'm sorry, my heart is somewhere else," the electricity cut out. ESCOM, Malawi's neighborhood friendly hydro-power supplier, has a habit of gifting us with inconveniently timed blackouts. Rumours abound with respect to why that might be the case.

Anyway, I have no idea how Aziwa II ended. I finished my nsima, paid my bill, and went home.