It's a boy - or is it?

By Daniel Nelson

Mother of George

Image by Mother of George

Excitement rises when Amaka gets pregnant. It’s a boy! But hopes are dashed with the subsequent miscarriage and mother-in-law’s pressure for a second wife to ensure a male heir.

Amaka’s response: tell no-one about the loss of the baby and the diagnosis of future sterility. Instead, she hatches a plan to find a baby that she can pass off as her own.

The scene is set for B For Boy, a moving tale of desperate hopes and crushing disappointments, of furtive concealment and whispered rumours, and of still powerful expectations of male lines and women’s roles.

There are a couple of weaknesses in the plot, and the film starts slowly and runs for almost two hours, but overall this is a success, particularly for Uche Nwadili as the would-be mum and Nigeria-born, British-educated director Chika Anadu.

It’s also a lesson in the persistent power of patriarchy buttressed by matriarchy.

As if to prove how powerful is the drive to preserve the male line, B For Boy is being screened the day before Mother of George, a beautifully shot film about a Yoruba woman living in New York who is under pressure to have a boychild. It’s less melodramatic than its counterpart: instead of a hatful of plot twists it has one twist, but it’s a big one that packs a punch.

Interestingly, the problem does not one with which the husband is obsessed. The pressure emanates mostly from his mother.

The film is lovingly told and filmed with restraint and a delicious sheen. It’s perhaps a little slow for everyday cinema audiences and Dosunmu’s camera mannerisms, which include a fondness for leaving some people in a scene half out of the frame, will not be to everyone’s taste. In addition, though the story takes one fascinating turning it lacks the twists and turns of B Is For Boy. But it has integrity and conviction and is well worth seeing.

Many Western audiences will be uneasy, dumbfounded or shocked by some of the attitudes in these films, but it’s good to be reminded that not all values are shared.

* B for Boy is showing at 2pm on Saturday 20 September, £6/£6.50, at the National Film Theatre, Belvedere Road, SE1. Info: 7928 3232. Ticket-holders can listen to Nadia Denton talking about her new book on Nigerian film-making at 11am on the same day

* Mother of George is showing at 6.20pm on 21 September, £6.50, also at the NFT