Shirley Frimpong-Mansu is the super-woman behind script, directions, casting and editing. And it was perfect! I went with my husband and some friends and we all had our laughs and loved the high audiovisual quality...as well as the story line. Three good friends - so good you wish you were one of them - are looking for love. One gets married in the opening scene, one is a man-eater and the last one says she will never marry. Here the intrigues start.
The film held a high tempo and included a entertaining and believable characters, references to daily life in Ghana "you make it sound like I could just go and pick up a baby at Koala!" (Koala supermarket being a popular supermarket in Accra) or "I'm not a fan of weddings, but you my friend make it worth every pesewa!" (pesewa being the Ghanaian equivalent to cent, penny or öre) and even a fun, feminist take on car chase.
The film also contained obvious product placements that were acceptable only because we have never seen Ghanaian ones before. For instance, one can only feel excitement when the three friends even went to see a film in the same cinema complex we were watching them in!
And then sex. Appearantly, the film set itself apart from all other Ghanaian productions EVER when it showed a kiss on the lips between the newlyweds in the first scene. After that, we got both scenes from different bedrooms (see the trailer above) as well as "sex-and-the-city"-kind of girlfriend talk on the topic. I think the Ghanaian audience was shocked at times (even though the scenes never really went beyond regular Hollywood steam) and at one point a woman sitting close to me in the dark exclaimed:
Oh, will we watch just kiss-kiss-kiss?
5 comments:
I am loving your description of what you saw.
Hopefully Ghanaians will flock in in huge numbers to see the film to make it a commercial and business success.
I bet we need lots of people like Shirley Frimpong-Manso to boost Ghana's fledgling entertainment industry.
Bless Kajsa!
Thanks for blessing me! I also think we need lots of Shirleys and maybe this is a start? It seems like the film already has earned back its production cost - just over easter it made GHC 25 000 according to the Business and Financial Times.
I agree with your take on what Shirley's done. She is a brilliant woman, and her work shows it too!
oh i want to see it too! i hope there will be dvds to buy in time for rome's next visit...
Hey Kasja, I went to see the premier and was surprised to see the amount of people that had turned up - they had three showings to a very full house (the national theater) - it was a welcome change from the African type movies we have come to expect. Kudos to Shirley and the crew.
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