Starring: Chiwitel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Anaka Noni Rose, Joseph Mawle, John Boyega.
Distributor: Independent
Runtime: 111 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2014
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Good question. What is actually the half of a yellow sun?
The answer is that a half the sun was the symbol, emblem, on the flag of the fledgeling nation, Biafra. But, after the 1960s, Biafra has faded from many memories – except the memories of citizens of Nigeria and emigrants leaving Nigeria from which Biafra seceded in 1967 and which was conquered by the Nigerian army and reincorporated into the nation. These years were tragic for the citizens of the new country, many killed in a warfare, in the air raids, were placed in camps, and experienced starvation.
This drama offers an opportunity for worldwide audiences to learn something of this part of Nigerian history. It opens with great fanfare on the day of Nigerian independence in 1960, local celebrations and a visit from Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh. But, Nigeria was an artificial creation by the British government and its colonial mentality, gathering together a number of tribes which, if not enemies of the other, left with them in some tensions. This artificial creation, as with so many of the countries of western Europe and Central Europe, would lead to bitter conflict, to armed conflict.
One of the advantages of this film is that it incorporates a great deal of film footage from the 1960s. This enables the audience to see some of the participants in independence, in the subsequent governments and military, coups. There is footage from television coverage, including reporting from author Frederick Forsyth, and from the newsreels screened in the cinemas.
The star of this film is Chiwitel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), born in London of Nigerian parents. This is an opportunity for him to return to his roots, this struggling time in Nigeria which meant that his parents emigrated to the United Kingdom. He plays an academic, comfortably off, teaching at a university, in a relationship with a woman who was also an academic. She is played by Thandie Newton, also born in the UK, but with a Rhodesian background.
As the film opens on Independence Day, we see her wealthy family entertaining one of the new ministers, but also vying for financial contracts, and the Minister eyeing the daughters to see what benefit he could gain. The two daughters, twins, then go to a club where one of them (Anika Noni Rose) encounters an Englishman, working in the colonies but aiming to be a writer, and they begin an affair which leads to their partnership. He is played by Joseph Mawle (who had played Jesus in the 2008 BBC series, The Passion).
These characters live in the part of Nigeria which was to become, for such a short time, Biafra. The first couple live in a university town, but the professor is heavily influenced by his tribal mother, who comes from her village with a servant and encourages her son, plying him with drink, to make the servant pregnant. This does not quite have the effect that she intended, but it does change the couple’s lives. The other couple live in Port Harcourt and look after the business interests of the family. When trouble breaks out, the well-to-do parents moved to England.
The first half of the film establishes the characters, their situations, the new country with its independence, but the inevitable trouble with ambitions, tribal clashes, leading to violence – and a surprisingly shocking massacre at an airport.
The second half of the film is concerned with the war, its effect on people in Biafra, the mass movements out of areas which we are were being bombarded. Some of the sequences, especially with cars trying to get along roads which are continually being bombed, bring home something of the effect of the war.
By 1970, Biafra no longer existed – which throws light on the subsequent history of Nigeria, tribal rivalries, and the clash between Christians and Muslims.
In some ways the film is fairly straightforward, with its story of relationships, prosperity, hardships. But, seen in the context of this part of Nigerian history, it reminds us that history needs to be relived so that later generations are aware of what has happened.
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