San Francisco Independent Film Featival, Feb. 6-18, 2025

[Chris Knipp]

TEMILOLUWA AMI-WILLIAMS IN THE LEGEND OF THE VAGABOND QUEEN OF LAGOS

THE ABAJOWO COLLECTIVE: THE LEGEND OF THE VAGABOND QUEEN OF LAGOS (2024)

ROXIE CLOSING NIGHT - SF INDIEFEST

Vibrant depiction of criminnalized poverty in urban Nigeria

"Jawa-Jenny" (Temiloluwa Ami-Williams) as a rich man she meets calls her, is beautiful, and so is her little boy, Daniel (Kachi Okechukwu). But she works as a humble street peddler and they live in an impoverished, off-the-grid settlement. The peddlers get raided and she's held and given a fine for "wandering without evidence of livelihood." Had she pleaded not guilty she'd have stayed in jail with a ransom. One day she finds a sachel of money stashed in a construciton area by corrupt politicians. She runs home with it, and finds out that she is rich.

Legend is like a fable or a 1001 Nights tale, except that it is grounded in the reality of today's urban Nigeria and imbued with authentic local atmosphere you couild cut with a knife. Every scene pulses with energy. It's hard to forget the sight of the sandal-wearing Jawu, judiciously filmed from below, approaching in a shoppoing mall in a tight-fitting dress she has just bought, her hair down in a more sophisticated "do," tottering on a new pair of black high heels. In a store where she goes to buy a pair of earrings priced at ₦100,000 ($129) the rude salesgirl thinks she can't afford, a posher woman (Nigerian actress Teniola Aladese) tells off the clerk and befriends her Jawu, who endeavors to speak more English and calls identifies herself as Jenny.

This leads Jawu to an evening with her new "friend" and men at a club (her boyfriend turns out to be a big boss), but she can't understand them and is apparently repelled. Soon we see a demolition operation is planned, carried out bu hired thugs with bulldozers and weapons drawn and Jawu and Daniel's village is demolished, as if the corrupt officials are at war with their own people. They treat them the way the Israelis treat the Palestinians only in this case the village is a pile not of stone or cement but of wood.

A group of thugs led by Indiana (Adosu Segun "Eskim" Segara) and Alapa Lebe (Agunto Noray), acting under the direct command of Abisoro (Debo Adedayo), the Local Government Chairman, emerge as the dominant adversaries. Abisoro takes orders from an unseen royal father. The destroyed settlement is a village of the Agbojedo community near a lagoon symbolic of the city of Lagos. And these forced evictons are a real phenomenon some members of the collective that took seven years making this film have personally experienced.

The omipresence of poverty, the involvement of corrupt politicians with thugs focused on here reminded me of Naples, and Garrone's La Gamorra/Gomorrah (NYFF 2008), which is also sort of the product of a collective, since a group of people contributed the stories. The squatter village may make you think of an older Italian film, Rossolini-De Sica's 1951 Miracle in Milan. Like that one, this one has a fantasy, magic realist element.

When the demolition comes and Daniel is knocked down in the mad exodus and apparently killed, Jawu sees no value in the cash she got any more. She burns one big bill, turning it in her hand until it's gone, then takes the whole sachel of money and lets it drift out toward the Atlantic Ocean. She goes to stay with Mitongi, her father (Gerard Avlessi), who lives in a village that floats on the water and therefore couild not be demolished. Since the cash apparently was going to go to pay off the thugs, consisting of unemplyed, impoverished young men, part of the poor community starts looking for it. The connected ommunities vow solidarity and after an elder's vigorous speech to their representatives in a open shack over the water, everyone bursts into song.

After all this Happiness, as the women she met in the jewelry store is called. comes to look for her and returns the smart white purse she left in the club, telling her she herself came from a village like this originally. Her boss boyfriend Abisoro knows of this visit and suspedcts her of involvement in the theft of his money. Mitongi comes to grief and Jawu may be in great danger as a result of the boss's awareness of the connection. This is a movie that has a new plot twist every few minutes, also never forgetting its earlier ones. Jawu's hairstyle changes almost as often. The cinematographer Leo Purman did beautiful work, revealing a penchant for delicate chiaroscuro. Edited by Khalid Shamis, Mathew Cerf, and Yiqing Yu; galvanizing score by Michael "Truth" Ogunlade.

In memory of many thousands "displaced" (evicgted from their homes) over many years in Nigeria.

The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos, 101 mins., debuted at Toronto Sept. 6, 2024, also showing at Lagos (Africa International Film Festival) , Oslo (Films from the South) and Jeddah (Red Sea International Film Festival). Screened for this review as part of San Frandisco Indiefest 2025.
Showings:
[Available February 6, 12:00 AM - February 18, 11:59 PM, 2025] Stream online...
Thu, Feb 13th, 6:00 PM @ Roxie Theater House 2