BABBAN GIDA (The Mansion) is an epic tale of power and abuse of privilege not just in the Hausa society, but in any society. It is larger than life. If you were familiar with the peculiarities of Kano, Nigeria, you would easily recognize how this home video seemed to fit into the more bizarre events in Kano during the Governor Rimi era, when the son of one of the richest and most powerful families in Kano murdered his utterly beautiful wife. It lead to a celebrated court case. I can't recall how it ended, but the rich kid did not get away with it. And no, he did not hang, either!
BABBAN GIDA is huge, epic, and pure adrenalin, containing the right mix
of tension, thrills and action tinged with tense menacing dialog. It is also audacious in
its blatant rip-off of the Hollywood action movie! Make no mistake about it. It is a modern
Hausa story " steeped in realistic plot elements " liberally spiced with Hollywood imagery
and props. As a violent action video it is in higher class category than the rubbish called
Ukuba which created Kumurci (the Hausa home video BAD guy super star) and Momoh characters.
BABBAN GIDA is a love story. Not between a boy and a girl; but the love of a mother for her son,
and her willingness to go to any length to defend him, no matter how unsavory he has been.
It is, in a way, Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando reversed, with Hajara Usman being the Arnie
figure, using the vehicle of the ultra-cool Zayyanu to blast the enemy to smithereens
The cinematography in BABBAN GIDA is good, camera handling excellent and the acting quite credible. And it is pure Hollywood. On movie terms, it is probably the first Nigerian Hausa film, if you know what I mean. There are two soundtracks with singing, but no one is dancing the dance of Lord Brahma or Lord Vishnu. Just some women doing their normal chores in the house and singing traditional songs - pure laid back Hausa. The music is incidental background video music, not created for a specific situation.
My main grouse against home video is that it should have English sub-titles because it would certainly appeal to Nigerian audience in a way no other Hausa home video (those that I have seen, not much, so far) would ever appeal. I certainly cant imagine Igbo youth in Owerri watching Dillagi, oops, sorry, Mujadala; but I can imagine them watching BABBAN GIDA because it has a more universal appeal, and it is HAUSA!
BABBAN GIDA is also a tale of arrogance, and in a surprising turn of sensitive character development, Hajara Usman exhibited a powerful performance as the matriarch of the Babban Gida, full of characteristic arrogance of the super-rich. Clearly Hajara did not read about the effects of radiation from cell phones, otherwise she would not be constantly playing with the antenna of her cell phone quite near her mouth. Could lead to mouth cancer!! But the cell phone prop is to extend her power of communication, and thus create an effective command-and-control scenario of a commander in charge of all the troops. For a lady who often appears as a homely, and often rustic mother, her role in this home video is a surprising display of her eclectic acting skills and character adaptations. She exudes the right mix of arrogance, menace and guts to make Ma Baker blush. Not bad for a grandmother who picked up her acting laurels from the hard knocks of life.
The entire home video is about the court case of Hajara's son who is arrested for the murder of a girl. Hajara was appalled that the mother of the dead girl would even bother to take them, members of the Babban Gida, to court. How dare she? We get the impression that the dead girls mother ought to be grateful that her daughter was murdered and thus saved the misery of penurious existence by a member of the Babban Gida.
We did not see the murder, we just know that the case is in court. The twist is that the elder brother of the accused murderer (and thus also Hajara's son, Waziri Zayyanu) is married to the daughter of the judge in charge of the case. And this judge is a straight one. No compromises. He loves his daughter, Hindatu Bashir (who was staying with him because of a rift between her and her husband, the elder brother of the accused), but he will not bend his rules to subvert justice. He insisted on following the course of justice. And if it means jailing the brother of his daughter's husband, so be it. At one stage, his daughter's husband actually came to the house to ask him to favor the release of the boy. The judge slapped him and kicked him out of the house. This caused further distance between the father and the daughter, who lamented the fact that if her mother were alive, she would not have been treated this way. Very touching. Hindatus acting here is one zillion times better than the comical boss lady in Maula.
The rest of the drama revolved around how Hajara, the Matriarch, planned to get her son sprung out of jail so that he could be flown out of the country. Sensing this plan afoot, the judge then requested the help of Ali Nuhu, an under-cover agent to help to ensure that the boy is brought to the court room before anyone can hide him. When he was brought to the court room to testify, which he could not because he was ill, Ali Nuhu hijacked the ambulance that brought him to the court and proceeded to take him to a safe house, where he is to be kept until the day of the sentencing.
What follows then is a hotchpotch of Hollywood with high speed car case, Beretta pistols (and these guns look REAL, not the dummy rubbish of Hauren 'Yan Wanki) blazing etc. Does anyone remember the van chase along Santa Monica freeway in The Terminator 2? Well BABBAN GIDA ripped that off, complete with a HELICOPTER chasing the ambulance. The helicopter was, of course, cut and pasted from some footage, but just like in a Hollywood movie, Ali Nuhu came out, Beretta blazing and somehow blew away the helicopter with a single shot. Wow! Thats Steven Seagal for ya!
In the meantime the jailbird's senior brother, Waziri Zayyanu, who drives in a stretch limousine, was in constant communication with everyone, from Babban Gida's sophisticated command center. Babban Gida does have everything, including a full zoo! In a metaphorical play of dramatization, Zayyanu kept switching the cameras between human beings and their animal equivalents from the zoo. When Hajara speaks, her scene is interlaced with a shot of a lioness; when one of her minions speak, the screen changes to show a hyena!
But no HUSBAND! Hajara is the Iron Maiden, controlling everyone with fear (including asking a security guard to blow his head off, because of his carelessness, which he did right in front of her!) In one of the scenes in the communications center, you can clearly see NTA stenciled across one of the machines in the room - giving away the fact that they used the NTA studio to simulate the communications center! Ouch! They ought to have covered it with something to create a more realistic imagery!
The most comical, and blatant Hollywood and certainly in the tradition of Nigerian Films - is the rescue attempt of Hajara's son by a band of mercenary AMAZONIAN mommas. Each momma is big, holding a BIG GUN, wearing cool dark glasses, with a red blouse, a headset communications microphone and black hijab! Talk about Sister Ninja! The lead momma even has a Makkah gold tooth she is a real Hajiya! They promised to retrieve the jailed boy to the Matriarch (for five million bucks chicken feed to the Matriarch) so that he can be spirited out of the country. So we see these AMAZONIAN chicks, running across obstacle courses, jumping over bridges, rolling on the grass until they got to where the jailbird is kept. Why they have to do all that, when the boy is supposedly hidden in safe house, not a jungle kango, is unclear. But hey, this is not Logic 2203, it is a home video, so suspend your intellect for a few minutes and enjoy seeing these chicks scramble their way across the plains, punching and kicking any MAN who was unfortunate to get in their way. If this home video were written by a woman, I would have called it a FEMINIST video. The men certainly get kicked a lot. Very very reminiscent of Cynthia Rothrock's China O'Brien character! Comically, the lead AMAZONIAN got shot in the leg and she started bawling like a baby, while her soldiers led her away. Thus they botched the attempt to rescue the boy. That leaves the matriarch, Hajara, to device another means of ensuring that her boy did not appear before the judge for a final judgment. In another twist, she also lost confidence in her eldest son, Zayyanu, and telling him that he is an agola in the house. This robbed him of his confidence in her and made him loose interest in the case. She doesnt care because she had other plans!
The final drama is worthy of any Dolph Lundgren (Universal Soldier, Black Jack) movie. The court was packed and the Matriarch was there with her MEAN DUDE security guys dressed in black and carrying more armor, including AK47 assault rifles than an army; the Judge looking very worried and scared, even crying; which I thought was odd, after all, if he was only after the truth why fear death? I wont spoil it for you by telling you what happened in the end, but rest assured, it was spectacular.
There is only one word for this home video: entertainment. The message is lame, the plot thin, but it is exciting, for a Hausa home video. The violence is acceptable only the bad guys get kicked and killed. The film is saying that you cant escape from justice and retribution, one way or the other, and I like this moral.
It is the kind of action home video Shua'ibu Kumurci would have loved to be in, but he would be outclassed here. Ina, Alhaji, wane shi! The villains in BABBAN GIDA are in a higher class of acting and credibility than Kumurci. Kumurci likes to act like a bad INDIAN boss; the guys in BABBAN GIDA are pure New Age Mafia and New Age Colombians rolled in one: no retreat, no surrender! No silly facial expressions. Just exuding cool meanness, and convincingly shooting straight and true with realistic guns, not toys.
This home video is a welcome departure from the rest of the tiresome rubbish produced in the Hausa home video arena. Perhaps because it provides a fresh perspective in ACTING; for these guys CAN ACT. People are tired of the same formula of of Hausa home videos of singing, dancing to Lord Shiva, romance, oblique moralizing, and empty drama. When you watch a video, it is to be entertained, not to be bored. Further, the only (to me) major faces in BABBAN GIDA are Ali Nuhu, Zayyanu, Hajara, and Hindatu Bashir ALL giving excellent non-characteristic performances. All the rest of the actors are not common faces and this makes them credible. I am almost looking forward to Zayyanus next video release. I hope he keeps moving from strength to strength. Another plus is that this video has no Part II, it is a single release. On the Empire magazine (www.empireonline.co.uk) scale of 5 stars, I would give it 3. if this home video did not win an Arewa Films Award this year, they might as well stop the awards because they would have become priests in a Hindu temple glorifying the worship of Lords Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu.
Abdalla
