Dire is a movie from the stables of Mount Zion Film Productions. It was written and directed by David Seun Abraham (Ewa Inu) and starred seeming newbies – Laditi Olaniyi Joseph as Tony and Morolayo Idowu as Sofia as the main characters – with Sam Aliyu, Adeoye Omoniyi (Abejoye Season 2), Ronke Gladys Abraham and a few others as supporting cast.
Dire tells the story of a young man, Tony, whose marriage proposal to the love of his life, Sofia, has been turned down, and who then begins to second-guess his motives when he learns of her terrible past.
The story is one that all singles would learn from, as it presents a situation so often encountered, especially in the body of Christ. It raises the question of whether we can truly accept the “all things have become new” pillar of our faith. One thing that I appreciate the movie for is that right from the beginning, we come across less-than-perfect scenarios that present us with opportunity as viewers to ask ourselves what we would do if we were in the characters’ shoes. Such reflexions serve as introspection for us the audience.
The movie has a good story on its hands and tries to let the camera work aid that. Zooms are occasionally used to hone in on the faces of characters to make the scenes more intense, while pans are used to insert motion into some scenes that otherwise might have felt static. Similarly, the cuts to the next scenes are creatively done; this enabled the editing to do a bit of the storytelling. The advantage of this is that each scene was empowered to do only the necessary; no impertinent dialogues or shots, no scene from longer than it should be. Hence, the movie is evenly-paced, a steadiness it kept from beginning to end.
The characters were effective without being spectacular. The viewer does feel that Laditi’s Tony and Idowu’s Sofia are actually in the situation the writer throws them into. I’m particularly impressed by the portrayal of the relationship between Tony and his older brother played by Adeoye Omoniyi. It never pretends that all siblings are close, because we see the difference in temperament and stature clearly; we even feel a rather large gap in their ages, and this is confirmed as Sam is scripted as being the first child while Tony is the last. Kudos then should be given to the casting director for picking actors that fitted the profiles of the characters.
Music, they say, is food to the soul. Unfortunately, Dire was devoid of both. There was strangely no background music or soundtrack in the movie at all. If the movie was this good without tunes, I can only imagine how much better it would be with sound. The greater news is that it’s not an irreversible problem. The movie could be re-edited and background music inserted. That would do the movie a world of good.
All in all, Dire is a solid movie that blesses its audience and has some valuable lessons to be learned.
To watch and/or download the movie, click on the link below: