Very fittingly for a film named as it is, My Father’s Shadow is a family affair. A semi-autobiographical debut from director Akinola Davies inspired by his own childhood, co-written alongside his brother Wale Davies, and starring two actual young brothers (Godwin and Chibuike Marvellous Egbo) as the stand-ins for Akinola and Wale, it’s all coming from a deeply personal place. The result is a film that, at its best, is deeply, universally affecting but also, in recreating the scattered memories and feelings of its creators’ own youths, just as often slippery and out of reach.
Set across one day in 1993, My Father’s Shadow starts at breakfast time in rural Nigeria with 8 year old Aki and his 11 year old older brother Remi taking care of themselves while their mum’s at work in the nearby village. Suddenly, without any fanfare, their frequently absent-for-work dad Fola (Sope Dirisu) shows up for a flying visit home before heading back to Lagos to pick up his long overdue pay, a trip that, this time, he unexpectedly lets his sons join him on. So begins a journey into the bustling, chaotic capital where the boys finally get an insight into their mysterious dad’s life just as the country collapses into chaos following the military overturning of the country’s first free elections in a decade.
The central dynamic between dad and sons is, naturally, My Father’s Shadow core strength. You truly believe in the familial bond between the trio, Davies conjuring a great pair of spirited and familiar child performances from the Egbo kids – the split of three years between Remi and Aki is exactly the split between me and my younger brother, with Aki even using the exact same tactics to annoy Remi that my brother did to me. Dirisu, meanwhile, dancing between languages depending on who he’s meeting in Lagos, is the best he’s ever been, vulnerable yet majestic.
While all of this is enveloping, the child’s-eye view of the world can also be a little alienating. We move from place to place without warning, giving a staccato rhythm to everything that stops its emotional spell from ever being fully cast (this is most keenly felt in two climactic scenes that should be, respectively, terrifying and tragic but don’t quite reach those peaks). There are still some show-stopping sequences, like the wonderful excursions to a fairground and then the beach, but Davies never wants to sit anywhere too long, lending a restlessness that feels apropos for a film from a kid’s POV but also kept me at arm’s length.
My Father’s Shadow can also be a little overdirected (though, to be clear, this is always a better problem for a debut film to have than the opposite, showing a confidence that can only mean good things going forward), the music in particular way too insistent. Lagos itself, a really underrepresented city on screen, looks great though, rich in colour and life and details that the boys are just getting old enough to start to understand the gravity of. Flaws and all, it’s still a remarkable calling card for the Davies brothers and their charming, mercurial cast.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 