If you haven’t seen this movie, House of Ga’a yet, I urge you to do so. On the other hand, this is a full-blown spoiler alert. So, the choice to read on is yours.
If you’re a lover of the Yoruba history & cosmology, you’ll love this 18th-century biopic by Bolanle Austen-Peters.
The movie, House of Ga’a explores the life, rise, and fall of Bashorun Ga’a, a ruthless Prime minister/kingmaker who rose to prominence after several war victories.
House of Ga’a models the 2004 movie written and directed by Adebayo Faleti which was later put on stage in 2014 by students of the University of Ilorin.
As with the popular saying by Late Chinua Achebe… “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”… The case of Bashorun Ga’a was more than absolute power corrupting absolutely. It was something much more profoundly sinister. He wielded power through voodoo & very dark magic and used that power to cripple everything and everyone else around him, making himself more powerful and stronger than even the kings he put on the throne.
Set in the great Oyó Empire, we see how power, treachery, deceit, and betrayal can sift into the fabric of society and eat it from within. The plot of this movie can be likened to a Shakespearean tragedy that embodies the rise of a nobleman, his errors, and his eventual downfall.
The prominent question on your mind, as you watch this movie, would be how one man could single-handedly bring everyone, even the oyomesi to a blatant and helpless halt, powerless to fight back? Well, here’s why:
In the Yoruba cosmology, and in ancient times, a warlord commands respect more than any other individual. Thus, making it overly possible that an army commandant could easily usurp the power of the kingmakers and rule over them, installing and killing Kings as he wishes.
Towards the end of the movie, we realize that Bashorun Ga’a isn’t just a tyrant, he is fueled by an age-long vendetta against the Aláàfin and the throne itself. This explains why he doesn’t wish to be the Alaafin, he just wants to control the throne and whoever sits on it.
Looking deeper, one can see that Bashorun’s aim isn’t to be King. Although it appears to look like that at first. He believes that whoever controls the King is god, and that’s what he aims to be – an undefiable, feared, and ruthless god.
When it comes to the cinematic allure of the movie, I’d say that House of Ga’a presented a close-to-perfect elegance in its cinematic representations. From the well-coordinated fight scenes to the set lighting and designs, costumes, and characterization, it completes the unique Yoruba odyssey. So, kudos to everyone who put in their sweat into making this movie.
Rating:
The only reason I’ll give this movie 7/10 is because of the somewhat plot predictability. Maybe I’ve read too many Yoruba plays. Maybe because I’m a writer but I saw a betrayal coming up and I knew it would manifest in one of 3 channels – from Bashorun’s slave wife, his drunk of a brother or his son; Oyemekun. In the end, we see betrayals of different magnitudes and how they (in their own ways) helped bring Bashorun Ga’a to his knees.
Let me know your thoughts below. Have you seen the movie yet?
Written by Pinklady Ohakah
