Party in Hell (Iran, 1956)

While popular with Iranian audiences, Party in Hell was controversial in its day—perhaps for its combination of traditional religious imagery and broad slapstick comedy. The religious imagery I’m talking about is, of course, its depiction of hell and purgatory. But from which tradition that imagery is derived is open to question. There are indeed many similarities between the Muslim and Christian conceptions of Hell, but when Party in Hell introduces Biblical figures like Adam and Eve into its narrative, it seems to indicate the latter as its primary source. Of course, this question could be easily set to rest if I’d had access to a translated version of Party in Hell, which is why you don’t pay money to read this blog.

It seems that the makers of Party in Hell were as or more familiar with the story of Scrooge as that of the Bible, as that is the story that is here being warmed over for our delectation. Popular stage comedian Reeza Arham Sadr plays Haji Jabbar, a wealthy merchant who is as tyrannical as he is stingy and grasping. In fact, the film does such a good job of establishing Haji as a complete bastard that it is difficult to swallow the comic antics his character falls back upon during its phantasmagorical second half. Haji is shown gleefully evicting a destitute mother and her starving children and then brutally manhandling his daughter Parvin (Roufia) in a rage over her wanting to marry her penniless lover. Parvin then sings a sad song to a caged bird, because, as with so many national cinemas, music was a key part of Iranian popular cinema—or, more accurately, Film Farsi—at the time. Seemingly, it’s only in America that making a lightweight musical romance with major studio backing is seen as taking some kind of tremendous artistic risk (yes, La La Land, feel the stink eye.)

Eventually, Haji becomes gravely ill and takes to his bed, whereupon he is visited by the angel Azrael, who ignores his pleas and whisks him off to purgatory. Party in Hell was considered quite technically advanced in its day, and it’s true that no small amount of modestly budgeted movie magic was expended in realizing its comically surrealistic vision of the underworld. Haji and his conscientious assistant Ahmad (Ezzatollah Vosough), who is also there for some reason, take in the sights as Haji ceaselessly wails and moans pathetically. What they see are monstrous, fog enshrouded idols, dark winged angels, craggy, desolate landscapes, hideous sleeping monsters, and horned demon sentries. Occasionally they will catch a glimpse of hell itself, seeing tormented souls hung by their heels and toiling at a giant stone wheel while pits of white hot lava roil angrily nearby. They even see Hitler, Genghis Khan and Napoleon greedily pawing at a globe that they have been circling predatorily for, one assumes, eternity. Then someone will stumble or hit their head and there will be a slide whistle or “boing-g-g” sound to accompany it, because this is a comedy.

Much of Haji and Ahmad’s tour through limbo has the feel of a twisted travelogue, like a God-fearing, Middle Eastern take on a Mondo movie. At one point, the pair comes upon a group of grass-skirt wearing movie savages, who entertain them with their native dances. At another, they stumble upon a sort of sock hop of the damned, populated by clean cut rock and rollers who shake and shimmy to an American rockabilly record. Haji has, by this point, stopped his obnoxious caterwauling, to the point that he happily participates in the dancing, though at another point he and Ahmad are happy to sit back and ogle the many scantily clad women on hand. You get the message that purgatory is actually pretty fun, until the two of them are presented to a white bearded figure who gives them a few more buzz-killing peeks at hell and its torments before setting them free.

I think that comparing Party in Hell to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol should count as a spoiler alert, so if you are shocked to learn that, upon waking from his dream, Haji is the picture of magnanimity, approving his daughter’s marriage and gifting his fortune to charity, you should probably clean your glasses and start this review over. Of course, Haji then dies, after which he is shown being transported to heaven in an ornate flying palanquin which is born on the shoulders of angels. Given what a shit Haji has been shown to be previously, this seems like a disproportionate reward, to say the least--but by this point it seems that Party in Hell has less interest in harsh moralizing than in just being entertaining. It’s difficult to imagine a film like it being made in the religiously conservative atmosphere of the post revolution years, just as it is to imagine the festival darling that Iranian cinema would become based on this movie’s comparative frivolity. Seemingly, that cinema had to go through a purgatory of its own before it could reach maturity.

Just 3 Days, Part II (Ghana, 2015)

Is it ironic that it took me four days to watch Just 3 Days? The problem wasn’t just that the film in total is over two and a half hours long. It’s more that, once I got through Part I and started in on Part II, the film became so abundant with craziness that I was making screen captures at a rate of two a minute. Seriously, if you are someone who comes to a movie like this for the crude special effects, outrageous violence, CG blood spatter, and abundant backyard kung fu fights, Ugandan action auteur Ninja has done you the favor of back loading all of that into Just 3 Days’ manic second installment. Of course, that is not to say that the first half, with its unique blend of Christian evangelism and kick-boxing, is not worth an at least cursory look.

Part II begins right where Part I left off, with the trio of kick-boxer Desmond (Akwasi I. Kwarteng), his sister Sophia (Priscilla A. Annabel--who is also credited with Make-up and “Welfare”), and off-and-on best friend Lucas (Osei Owusu) escaping from the Underworld with a magical golden box that they believe will lift the bad luck that has befallen them due to the ill-fated marriage of Desmond’s miniature brother, Dominic (Jospeh Osei) to the allegedly cursed Annah (Elizabeth Arthur.) [Pauses for breath.] Never mind that this magic golden box answers more accurately to the description “yellow plastic box.” What matters is that its theft has roused two of the box’s guardian spirits, who take off in pursuit of Desmond and his partners.

The first of these spirits is Iron Eagle (Akwasi Kwarteng), a primitive computer animation of a giant robot eagle who, upon entering the mortal world, transforms into an imposing and brooding human figure in Ray-bans and a hooded black nylon cape. The other is Tanya (Mabel Amitoh), a flaming statue who likewise transforms into a fiery eyed vixen who, in a nice Max Headroom-like touch, has cornrows the size of actual corn rows. Tanya’s attire is limited to a black sports bra and biker shorts. If you have ever wondered if there was a mall in Hell, and, specifically, if it had a Sports Chalet, Iron Eagle and Tanya’s combined attire should answer your question.

Immediately upon her arrival, Tanya hooks up with two prostitutes who, inspired to pity by her meager coverings, offer to take her in. Meanwhile, Iron Eagle wastes no time in tracking Desmond down and offering him an ultimatum: return the gold box within just 3 days or die horribly along with all of his loved ones. And, yes, you are correct in noting that Ninja has waited until well into his film’s second installment to provide a context for its title.

Just 3 Days being the film that it is, Desmond takes this news home to Sophia and Lucas, after which the three of them engage in a shouty debate over what they should do. Meanwhile, the unsubtly named Pastor Christian (Iddrisu Mohammed Abdallah), a character whose every entrance is marked by the sudden appearance of Christian soft rock on the soundtrack, pays a visit to Dominic and his mother, Madam K (Rose Mensah). Christian has somehow learned of the theft of the box and beseeches Dominic and Madame K to solve their problem through prayer rather than black magic. Thus does this scene set in motion the see-saw that will characterize Just 3 Days concluding half, with sequences in which people’s heads are impaled with katanas alternating with—and being given equal weight as—those in which characters carry on sincere sounding debates about faith.

Such is the dichotomy of Ghanaian cinema, whose country of origin boasts a powerful Christian majority—most of whom, like many other people in the world, nonetheless want to see movies in which shit blows up and people get gorily mowed down with machine guns. Given this, it is legitimate to wonder whether Ninja—whose credits for Just 3 Days include Executive Producer, Writer, Director, Editor and Special Effects director—has a sincere commitment to such issues of faith, or whether presenting them is simply part of the dance he must perform in order for his films to be commercially successfully. It’s conceivable that, like Uganda’s Isaac Nabwana, he’d prefer to skip the religion altogether and just get to the explosions.

If that’s the case, the judiciousness with which Ninja weaves this moral debate into the film’s action is all the more commendable. Unlike the Nigerian film 666 (Beware The End is at Hand), whose surfeit of prosthelytizing made it leaden despite its preponderance of digitally rendered insanity, Just 3 Days trots along at an energetic pace despite it. It also has to be said that what scenes there are of people sitting on their front porches and arguing while fanning themselves accomplish, as they do in 2016, the mean feat of infusing this tale of murderous hell robots with the homely rhythms of everyday life. It is hot in Ghana, after all, so is it not conceivable that its people, made testy by the heat, might wile away the hours by lazily bickering with one another over Mirinda sodas?

Back in the story of Just 3 Days, Desmond, Dominic, and Sophia’s numerous expendable and as-yet-unnamed siblings find the rhythms of everyday life becoming an ever-diminishing commodity as they are killed one by one by Iron Eagle and Tanya. In response, Madam K, a former soldier, goes commando, confronting Tanya in full combat gear—only to beat a hasty retreat when Tanya’s head turns into a flaming death's head before her eyes (not unlike Fantomah.) Later, Tanya further proves that she is a formidable foe, murdering someone simply by spitting magic into her cell phone.

Finally, Desmond and Lucas go to an apparently very well connected kick-boxing promoter named Owen (Emmanuel Afriyie) for help. He presents them with a pair of magic candles, which he will give them on the condition that Desmond waves his payment for an upcoming, high-profile fight. These candles, once the proper incantations have been intoned, provide the men an audience with an underworld being known as the Wise Man. This creature promises to give them a pair of bracelets that will render them invincible if they will provide him with two human hearts—women’s hearts, to be exact. Desmond and Lucas agree to this without hesitation. This is followed by a well-executed sequence in which shots of Desmond’s match alternate with shots of Lucas stalking and killing two women on a deserted country road.

And it is here that Just 3 Days put us on harsh notice that the men we have been positioned to see as its protagonists may not be worthy of it—and that a conclusion in which good triumphs over evil may not look the way we earlier might have assumed it would. What we can be certain of, however, is that that conclusion will only come on the tail end of a lot of kick boxing.

Within the context of African action cinema, Just 3 Days strikes me as an ambitious film—and an indication that Ninja, in his own excitable way, is trying to drag that cinema into the 21st Century. For one thing, its melding of genres—sports drama, horror film, family melodrama, religious parable—seems deliberate and self conscious, rather than the usual reckless hodgepodge of commercial elements. Also, it juggles audience expectations with an unexpected—and almost malicious—deftness. Both of these are indications of a growing confidence on the part of the filmmaker, and bode well for the future of his industry. While so many of the national cinemas covered in this blog have seen their heydays come and go, Africa’s is still an electrifying work in progress whose best days are yet to come.

Just 3 Days, Part I (Ghana, 2015)

When we last checked in on Ghana’s Ninja Productions, they were providing us with as much spectacle as a single digit special effects budget could provide in 2011’s presciently named 2016, a film about a small Ghanaian town invaded by baby-punting ColecoVision aliens. 2015’s Just 3 Days tells a somewhat more complicated tale, involving kick-boxing, family secrets, and an ill-advised journey into Hell.

Ninja stock player Rose Mensah stars as Serwaah, the mother of kick-boxer Desmond and his brother Dominic, a sweet natured soul who is also, among many other things, a little person. Dominic is played by another Ninja standby, Joseph “Wayoosi” Osei. Due to Osei’s uniquely child-like appearance, it’s often difficult to tell whether he is meant to be playing an adult or an especially precocious (and often evil) kid. In this case, specific reference is made to his condition, which gives the actor a rare opportunity to portray a character that is presented in a sympathetic light. Osei truly steps up to the task, delivering what I have to say is an accomplished performance. A scene in which Serwaah details the hardships of raising and caring for Dominic as he sobs quietly in the background is especially affecting.

Anyway, it seems that Serwaah and her family have been plagued by a prolonged streak of bad luck, which seems to have coincided with Dominic’s marriage to Anna, the sister of Desmond’s best friend, Lucas. They assume that Anna must be under some kind of curse, as one well might. Desmond confides this to Lucas, who, despite being sworn to secrecy, immediately runs and tells his mother, forcing her to come clean with him and his siblings. They are indeed cursed, she tells them, and it is the result of one of their ancestors entering into a “bad covenant”, one in which he or she chose to exchange happiness in love for long life. As a result, the members of their family live to a very advanced age, but always, upon finding true love, suffer the death of that loved one very shortly afterward. Their women are also sterile and those children that are born, like Lucas and Anna, are kind of dumb—and, as a result, unable to go to college and get a good job (something that Just 3 Days repeatedly stresses the importance of.)

Desmond’s sister, Sophia, another dummy, somehow overhears this conversation among Lucas’ family and rushes home to tell her mother. And if at this point you’ve guessed that Just 3 Days is set in the same town as the other Ninja movies I’ve reviewed--i.e. a sun-blasted hell hole of malicious gossip and neighbor-on-neighbor back stabbing (and which I have to assume is somewhere in, or on the outskirts of, Kumasi)—, you deserve to give yourself the most sparkly sticker in the box. Almost every plot development in this movie is driven by someone nosing around in someone else’s business and then summarily ratting them out, and, in this case, it leads to Serwaah making a startling revelation to her kids.

She tells them how, on a recent trip to Israel, she met a “strange woman” who, upon hearing of her predicament, presented her with three magical items--which comes as a harsh blow to those of us who went to Israel and came back with only a souvenir dreidel. Serwaah presents these items to her children, an event whose solemnity is undermined somewhat by those items being wrapped in a used FedEx envelope like those supplies you stole from the office last week. They are revealed to be a book, a map, and a key. These, Serwaah tells them, will open a gateway to the “underworld” and lead them to a golden box that, when opened, will free them of their curse.

This revelation sets off all of the shouting and quarreling that fills in the non-action parts of so many Ghanaian action movies. One might think it was a country in which no argument was settled in a calm and reasoned manner. It’s all people sitting on their front porches and dabbing the sweat from their brow as they thunder away irritably at one another. (No soda consumption was observed, however.) At least in the case of Just 3 Days these squabbles were subtitled, so I knew what was being discussed. And what was being discussed was not just strategy, but faith. Serwaah, for instance, wants her children to use those magic items to spelunk into Hades and fetch the golden box. Sweet natured Dominic, on the other hand, feels that they should instead seek release from their curse through prayer. Serwaah scoffs at this notion—which is an odd position to take for someone who believes in a literal hell that you can actually visit.

Anyway, because of their town’s aforementioned shittiness, news of the magic key and its companions quickly makes its way back to Lucas and his family. Lucas wastes little time in attempting to steal them in a violent home invasion robbery. When Desmond and his family respond with kick-boxing and bullets, Lucas’ brother Austine swallows the key, only to have it magically extrude itself from his throat when he takes a shot to the head. Desmond and Sophia then recruit a repentant Lucas to take the journey to the underworld with them.

The Underworld, as you might guess, looks like a video game environment, with a lot of looped screaming on the soundtrack to give it that "dude, we are so totally in hell" ambience. The trio makes quick work of capturing the golden box, only to rouse Iron Eagle, the box’s guardian. This Iron Eagle, mind you, should not be confused with the movie starring Louis Gossett Jr.—unless that movie featured a fierce-looking, man-sized robot hawk.

And it is here that Just 3 Days, Part I ends—as it, like all of Ninja Productions’ films, has been transformed into companion films by a simple click of the editor’s blade. While this is a cagey way of getting people to pay twice for the same film, it also alleviates some of the problems common to sequels, like all of the actors looking obviously older than they did in the first film. Also, it’s unlikely that anyone has ever credibly claimed that their childhood memory of Just 3 Days, Part I was “raped” by Just 3 Days, Part II.

Although I am going to emulate the makers of Just 3 Days and take a powder between reviews, I wanted to say that, at this point, I’m enjoying the movie quite a bit. It seems like an improvement on the earlier Ninja Films, both in terms of having a more cinematic look and uniformly good performances. Which is not to say that it doesn’t have its flaws; some clumsy scene transitions among them, as well as a series of noisome in-film plugs that, while refreshingly honest, make Hollywood’s approach to product placement seem subtle by comparison.

In any case, I enjoyed Just 3 Days, Part I enough that I am now looking forward to seeing what Just 3 Days, Part II holds in store. Let’s hope that it doesn’t disappoint me. (You wouldn’t like me when I’m disappointed.)

666 (Beware the End is at Hand) (Nigeria, 2007)

As someone who’s recently been forced to confront his own mortality, I’ve had to face some uncomfortable questions. “What will the end look like”, is one of those that both all and none of us want answered. Then again, I suppose, it depends on who’s doing the answering; as a devoutly secular person, I wondered what succor the Christian church might offer me on the topic. Of course, I turned to a Nigerian evangelical Christian exploitation movie to find out. And the answer – that we’re all uproariously fucked – did, I have to admit, offer a little bit of a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Pastor Kenneth Okonkwo, the producer of 666 (Beware the End is at Hand), clearly intended it as a sincere work of evangelicism, yet still knew which side his bread was buttered on. Thus he takes us straight to Hell before subjecting us to the interminable shot-on-video sermonizing that will take up so much of 666’s running time. The battle for man’s soul, according to Okonkwo, will take place in the suburbs of Lagos, and there, for the most part, in a church basement. That, at least, appears to be where Hell is located in the film, which means you religious folks should take it very seriously when your preacher or wizard of whatever talks about what’s down below. It’s right down there! They can totally hear you!

Emeka Ani, who plays Satan in the film, takes a very Harinam Singh approach to expressing his malevolent authority, in that he simply parks himself on a throne for the entire movie and declaims at the camera with wild eyes while referring to himself in the third person a lot. His studio audience is a congregation of female minions who laugh in unison at his shtick in a manner that suggests the laughter bag being very quickly opened and closed again. Between heavily accented proclamations of the End TImes, he sends his emissaries to Earth to “win souls” for him. This mostly consists of lots of fully clothed gay sex, but also consists of one devotee forcing a hooker to lick an open lesion on his ankle, which results in her arriving in Hell and being thrown into a chicken wire covered fire pit.

But, wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I give you the impression that any of these interesting things happened in any kind of close succession – creating, as it were, a sense of some kind of propulsive narrative drive -- I must point out that they in fact served as intermittent interruptions to the aforementioned sermonizing by Okonkwo’s Pastor Chucks, who walks the coffee stands, beer halls and marketplaces of the city, preaching the gospel to the seemingly deaf ears of the populace, who quite manifestly just want to enjoy their various beverages. Granted, there is some buoyant Afro pop that plays during these scenes, but, as it is always the same exact cue, it quickly comes to contribute to, more than alleviate, the monotony.

Thankfully, relief comes in the form of a horned demon child who is born to an Earthly woman, at which point 666 (Beware the End is at Hand) (I swore I was only going to write that full title once) really kicks into its own somnolent version of high gear. There’s actually a flash forward to eight years later! At this point, it is clear that this is a very bad kid, as evidenced by a long, unbroken shot of him playing somewhat normally, if a bit brattily, with a bunch of kids in an alley. At his worst, he sprouts a single, chalky horn and throws glowing energy orbs at people, but even in repose he must shock the gentry by openly drinking and smoking at public cafes. The only problem is that the kid who plays him, with his perfectly round head and little pot belly, is kind of adorable – and the fact that he employs that same barking laughter bag laugh while trying to sound like a menacing adult doesn’t help matters.

This is all of little consequence, however, as a holy man quickly comes along and destroys the little bastard.

Until 666 (Beware the End is at Hand) 2, that is.

 

Wait, did I not mention that 666 was, at least, a 2 parter -- its roughly hour long increments likely determined by that of the average VHS tape? Well, it is, and part 2 begins exactly where 1 left off, with the resurrected Devil Boy discovered crying by the roadside by the kindly Pastor Chucks, who takes him home. Devil Boy makes quick work of possessing the Pastor’s niece and hoodoos her into strangling him. From there he goes back to his usual devilry. In fact, of the two films, part 2 is the one that delivers most generously on the exploitation thrills, will all manner of low rent video effects being put to the task of realizing the Dark One’s fiendish magic. In the end, a confusing montage depicts the beginning of Satan’s reign on Earth with much wicked but strangely abrupt laughter drowning out the lamentations of the populace.

Yet, as the credits rolled over Kenneth Okonkwo’s smiling face, I had to wonder, was this really the end? IS THAT ALL YOU GOT, PASTOR OKONKWO? And perhaps that is the message of 666: (Beware the End is at Hand) (dammit, there I go again) – that, in life, there is not always going to be a 666 (Beware the End is at Hand) 3 to come along and set things right; that THE END is not always just sequel bait, but sometimes just that -- and, as such, a call to get straight with ourselves and our God.

Which is not to say that I’m not trolling the internet for the next installment, as horrible as it might be. And in this, too, is a metaphor for life.