October 1 (2014)

October 1: Directed by Kunle Afolayan. With Sadiq Daba, Kayode Aderupoko, Ademola Adedoyin, David Bailie. As Nigeria prepares for independence from the British in 1960, a seasoned police detective rushes to find the serial killer slaughtering its native young women.

“When I was a kid in the early 60u0026#39;s, Iu0026#39;d come down to the breakfast table and find my stepfather reading about the Congo. For a little while, it was all over the news. I donu0026#39;t know if the Congo occupied the news in other metropolitan areas the way it did in Detroit. It really meant something there, probably because of Detroitu0026#39;s large black population.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI remember as I glimpsed the blaring headlines and asked my stepfather what it all meant words like u0026quot;independence.u0026quot; There was the name Patrice Lumumba and the seeming inevitability that he would be killed for his cause. The movie October 1 is set in Nigeria and does not mention Lumumba or necessarily take sides — it is assumed everyoneu0026#39;s for independence except possibly for the grudgingly accepting British empire forces who are still running things while planning to begin handing over power to a new Nigerian government, on Oct. 1, 1960. But the countrymenu0026#39;s anticipation of this ground-breaking transition is a still slightly uncertain backdrop to a detective trying to solve a string of murders and find his footing among his rulers.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI started the movie expecting it to be interestingly amateurish as have been some movies I have seen from that part of the world … peeks into a lifestyle that no matter how nascent are little different from anyone elseu0026#39;s. Made in Africa by Africans, the movie seemed to have grass-roots production values but then I realized that was only because they reflected the milieu. In Nigeria in 1960 people still lived very close to the land. There would be a lot of foliage and open-air buildings to be seen. I loved the fabrics out of which women made cottony dresses featuring large emblematic portraits of their leaders.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut as the movie progressed, I realized it did not suffer in production values at all; in fact, it was superior in some ways to anything I have seen coming out of the West lately. Perhaps the filmmakers did need to be creative for lack of a budget but I liked the way sometimes something, a sound, for instance, would get a special treatment, almost as if we could see the shock waves extending out on the screen. It has been a couple of months since I saw the movie and I have been wishing to write this review all that time so, please forgive me, I donu0026#39;t remember exactly the events being so depicted, they might have been a sound, or an emotion, or both. But I found the effects simple but evocative,u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIu0026#39;m not going to go into the plot other than to say that some of its turns are surprising and adult and may not be suitable for children. But I think youu0026#39;ll like our detective, a man of dignity and sense and who is quite thin. Whoa. He is quite appealing. Winterbottom is dashing, too — keep an eye out for Nick Rhys. But in Inspector Danny Waziri, Sadiq Daba nails the role of a lifetime. I have to add that I think Tunde Babalolau0026#39;s script was brilliant, understanding so well both sides of the transitiion and knowing when to crescendo. Even though the gaining of independence is not explained like a history lesson, it is an interesting snapshot of how the countrymen responded and an intriguing context for the movieu0026#39;s events and the detectiveu0026#39;s courage. October 1 is a great little movie. P.S. Maybe director Kunle Afolayan would like to make one of his future projects a biography of Lumumba, if it wouldnu0026#39;t be too controversial. From surveying a Wikipedia entry about Lumumba, he seems to have fit my cursory childhood take on him as a tragic leader.”