Movie Review: Newton I. Aduaka's 'Ezra' is a film about Love as much as War

There is much to be taken away from a film in which, in the first 15 minutes, a child, no more than nine years of age, is shot and killed as an example for the other children to do as they are told.

Ezra is a Nigerian film about the 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone; it is about the real and the abstract: child soldiers, blood diamonds and AK-47’s, fire, and community—its ancestors, elders and the village—love, war, remembrance, forgiveness. It is especially about forgiveness, about love and war, about the three as experienced by the children, the child. Ezra.

He is the 16-year-old soldier who cannot remember killing his parents or others’ during the attack of his village. His story is fragmented, a collage of stolen lives told in flashbacks. His sister, Onitcha is witness to parts of his truth. Through the siblings’ accounts, Ezra is both boy and man.

His walk is so tall and hard, for everything and for nothing; the fire in his eyes is more a ravaging blaze than a rising sun; the gun he carries is an extension of his arm, less a symbol of manhood than a telling of childhood. But despite what he has seen and done, despite the war around and in him, he is found. Her name is Mariam, or Black Diamond. A soldier herself, though for a different camp, she chose this life. She also chose Ezra.

It is easy in the 110-minute production to forget that the story unfolding is the story of so many. The film points out that just eight years ago, nearly 120,000 children were serving as soldiers in Africa. Director and script writer, Newton I. Aduaka based the film in fact, and he did well to script and show not just the face of a child ripped from childhood and recast as a soldier but the spirit of this child as well.

A film so full of what war does can leave a viewer with many how’s and why’s, but this may not be Aduake’s sole purpose. Ezra is also about love. Represented unconditionally in Ezra’s sister Onitcha who receives a beating when she attempts to follow her brother instead of go home, love is reason enough to fight, to dance, to live.

In one scene, he sits with a sketch pad in hand drawing Mariam, now his wife. She leans into him, smiles, and whispers what his next action shows: On his pad, he makes round what was initially her flat belly. The scene reality-checks the viewer, reminds him or her again that this is a story of the boy who is also the man named Ezra. A smile floats past his lips as he looks down, too humbled to look into her, an act that suggests that love can be ageless and care not for lives taken, that it’s only to be received.

And, yes, with much to be taken away from a factual film as this, the softer side should not be discounted though the questions should come. Love that reaches beyond what was stolen or forgotten is reason enough.

Listening to music differently

There’s something in the blues that moves my everything—my skin, my spirit—in that familiar, Langston Hughes lazy sway kind of way. But this morning, I noticed the music, though it sounded the same, still running over with the yearning of a drought-plagued South for rain in July, its affect on me was different. The blues pulls at the heart, paints over pain as a lover, bitter but sweetly, says good bye to her love. My body still swayed, my fists still clenched to almost white, but my heart did not move beyond me. I have been heading to this place for some time—this place where music can be enjoyed and felt without having a direct connection to my current state: I don’t have the blues. My man loves me, lays with me, and the sun shines through his smile. There is no wish in me for the blues to burn, for the love to be returned or loved harder. I only want to continue to feel, to move as the current of a lethargic, forgotten body of water, to listen as the river speaks to me through the weary, I-been-born-to-roll-on-and-die, just-feel-me-cuz-ain’t-nobody-else-feelin-me blues. Because what beautiful shades of blue.

just a thought

Poetry has become a type of reward. I do my work. I work hard and well. I maintain focus, though it is at times like pulling teeth. Becoming a critic is an interesting thing, especially considering that, as a poet, I have only ever wanted to appreciate. The effort is there. The writing is getting better, tighter. The effects can be seen in the lines. Let me say to you or to me, I mean, this is my blog, that my relationship with poetry is the most sincere, most intimate, and perhaps the most sacrificing I have ever been in. Forrest Hamer, my sweet friend and mentor, he knows well of this. Apparently, it's normal. But I'm running here. I just touch keys to say that I am smiling inside. There is a poem behind this screen and freelance articles to be revised. I am a working writer who knows well of love. It is learning to maintain it, in all of its moods and colors, that I still must learn to know better.

Lizz Wright's The Orchard gets prose poetry out the wannabe critic

Being moved by good music is like being loved by a good man. I should know. My man is love, is music. And when my man’s words love me, ain’t no sound more better, more like life. I hold my breath sometimes just to hear them, feel them, feel him better. I do the same thing when it comes to good music. Cuz ain’t nothing between me and these songs but the same kinda distance that’s between my man and me, so I hold to these songs, their words like I hold to the smell of him, like without it, I just, I just fold in on myself, curl my body around the memory of him cuz he was once in the this very space and in this very space I didn’t really curl my body around him right, enough. I just get moved by good music, by Lizz singing those sexy come-lay-with-me blues: I wanna make love to you/when the lights are low/scream to you babe/just to let you know/all I want/is just a little touch from you/just a little bit attention/you know is gonna see me through . . . . and I smile cuz I got a good man lovin me whose good lovin hands I’ll be fillin soon. I smile. I smile and I manage to keep myself together as her blues become mine and mine never mind the feelins. They get a voice so good, my lips part as the music steps out of me to sing words I can hold on to.

Why Black History Month

"If the branch is to flower, it must honour its roots." Titinga Frederic Pacere

I was told by a “diluted” Caucasian (her word, not mine) that there should be no Black history month. I tried to listen, to be open to her ideas, but I couldn’t. I shut her down with the Black hand side before I even shook my head in uncertainty to what I’d actually just heard tumble from her lips.

I believe her explanation was something like ‘Black history being American history and having a month set aside for something that is the whole country’s is silly.’ But like I said, I turned from cool, unthreatening Sam to a force to be reckoned with, to much darker than my yellow skin suggests. I turned into a representative, something I have never quite been fond of but this girl who refers to herself as diluted, who actually gave voice to such self-hatred, while I’m thanking my white momma every day that she married daddy and birthed ain’t-too-proud-to-speak me.

I spoke. Of sober mind and body, I spoke to the very sweet though very ignorant girl. I asked her what she knew about Black history that didn’t involve the physical enslavement of my people (no way the girl had a clue about mental bondage though she was obviously dying of it herself). I asked her what she could tell me about Black history that didn’t involve Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, or Malcolm X. I asked her to name me five, just five, Black authors. She sat in silent ignorance, my voice smothering her bliss, the confines of my car holding it to her face to smell. She knew she stunk. She knew she misspoke. She has been overly sensitive ever since.

A Walk Through Jesus: A Critical Look at the Church as a Tourist Attraction (or could it just be Black Privilege?)

The church door is opened by an oak colored woman. She greets you with a smile while saying, “Where are you visiting from?” Good morning to you too my Sister. Your feet touch the traditional red carpet, eyes look for the perfect red pew to receive the Lord, but in stepping closer to the sanctuary, you are bum rushed by ushers in black. God’s got secret service agents and they go to church in Harlem. They turn you toward the stairs.

Three flights of concrete later, the nose bleed section, and you are among your Harlem church family: A sea of wide-eyed, white faces seated in at least 12 rows all the way up to the ceiling. You notice anticipation in their eyes, realize those visitors are here for a show. Who’s Jesus anyway? You’re corralled and seated like a cow to a stable.

Segregation? Yes. Black privilege? No. Couldn’t be... Yes, it could. You blink hard and hold it for a moment, force your eyes away from that shocking portrait of sameness and try to make eye contact with the man at the podium. He never looks up from the first-floor, you assume members-only congregation. He never makes you visible, never acknowledges that you came from afar, paid good money to be in the house of Lord. Except you didn’t pay; the tourists behind you, chatting as if 200 whispers can’t be heard, did.

The choir makes a grand entrance. You forgive cliché and finally understand what angels sound like. Tears well up and go down your face. And those tourists, well, they herd out immediately after the concert, before their formal welcome: A sister speaks of being a visitor, a stranger, in God’s house. She shouts out at least seven countries represented this Sunday morning and welcomes them all, even though their representatives have already left. She closes with Hebrews 13:2, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for some have entertained angels unawares.”

Momma says don’t knock blessing, can’t blame a church for knowing the same. And so you see. Yes. You see. More than a child of God, here to receive blessings from the word, you are a butt in a seat. You are a spectator. Or maybe you were just caught up, present with the wrong color of visitors. But never mind. You were entertained, and wasn’t that the point, or at least the church’s point?

Either way, part of you wants to come back next week, alone, see if you can slide into a pew on the first floor just to trick the man. The other part of you can’t help but wonder how much a group rate is at such an establishment. Too quickly, you hope the choir gets a cut of whatever is the tourists’ mighty dollar and you opt to leave early, knowing you can pray and praise well enough alone. Besides, it’s first Sunday, and you’d rather thank God for coffee than communion.

Your Average Black Chick

It's snowing in Central New York this evening. Syracuse to be exact.

I know because I just ran out with the trash when something begged and begged me not to run back. My hair was uncovered, as black as the sky where the snow is falling from. I realized on the walk back to my apartment, some 50 feet away, that I'm just your average black chick. Despite what the profile pic may suggest with that hair, that wild and free hair. It was part of my Halloween costume. I went as a poet; for me, the hair fit. Not to mention I was coming well past due for a perm; the hair just kinked and curled by nature. But it's not my usual. I'm a roller wrap kinda girl. Always have been.

The point is that under my night-black, iron-pressed wig, I, your average, homegrown black chick, actually stopped in the snow. The snow. Snow hits like water, and I was taught well, hence why I ran to the dumpster.

But on the walk back, it came to me: running in the snow, as if I could run from it, dodge it in some superhuman way, is such a silly action and an even sillier idea. Why not walk? As a sista, I've been running from rain damn near my whole adult life. And I mean running for real, like an escape convict with other folks' eyes at every window and sirens in earshot. So crazy, right.

I stood in the snow for longer than a moment. Felt its flakes kiss the crown of my head, and even muscled the audacity to look up. To let the cold, white pieces of longevitiy kiss me, as a friend who is also a lover would. I smiled, embarassed and upset with myself that I had been running all this time just too proud to be your average black chick.

Silly me. As if beauty can be seen ducking and dodging and running from rain and its cousin, the snow. Silly me. Beauty is best seen when she is standing still.