In The Fire and The Moth, Tayo Faniran plays Saba, a smuggler hired to transport a stolen museum artifact—one of the Ife bronze heads—across the border to Francois, an international art dealer. But the Ife head in his possession is the sacred symbol of the Ori and a vessel of destiny. To meddle with it, as one character says, is to meddle with fate itself.
But trafficking such a valuable object comes with a few requirements. One of them is the payment of tribute to Opa Stephen (Olarotimi Fakunle), a power-drunk police officer. A hunt ensues when no tribute is paid. For his part, Francois grows impatient. Suspecting foul play, he dispatches a peculiar solution: a nameless Contractor armed with a flamethrower.
So, if you have wondered what No Country for Old Men might look like in Nollywood, director Taiwo Egunjobi has the answer. His new film’s outline is similar to that Oscar-winning project. Both films have a down-on-his-luck man burdened by a treasure he can’t let go off. There are people with their own designs in the man’s path. And stalking them all is an enforcer with a peculiar weapon of choice.
But this is an Egunjobi film. Not only is the screenplay another collaboration (a fourth) with screenwriter Isaac Ayodeji, but the visuals also appear retro and the commanding figure of actor William Benson pops up. But The Fire and The Moth is a notable evolution from Egunjobi’s last feature, A Green Fever. The characters here are more fully realised and the actors are given more room to work—even within the director’s tightly framed indoor shots.
Taiwo Egunjobi’s The Fire and the Moth makes a winning combination of Nollywood and the neo-western.
Efiko Score: 7/10
Egunjobi strikes a remarkable balance between the neo-western genre his film is indebted to and the melodramatic and metaphysical aspects of the film tradition he works in. It’s a delicate play that works well within the film’s overall minimalist aesthetic. Dialogue is sparse, direct, and never rings false. There are no smartphones—only basic cell phones. Vehicles and homes appear worn, lived-in, and near disrepair. Even the Contractor’s flamethrower looks like it was cobbled together in a backyard—a chilling reflection of the mind of the kind of person who chooses to build such a device.
This grim, grounded realism may be what sets the Contractor apart from No Country for Old Men‘s villain, Anton Chigurh. The latter embraced and engineered the randomness of fate; the Contractor (a forbidding Jimmy Jean-Louis) is his disciplined counterpart—brought in to impose order on the lawlessness of Nigeria’s underworld.
Of course, The Fire and The Moth is not without its problems. There is the question of just how much time passes between events in the film. While it seems obvious that Opa Stephen’s intrusion into the business of smuggling the Ife head is what leads to the delay that triggers the release of the Contractor, hardly enough time passes to justify Francois’s impatience. This is especially because Francois alludes to a seven-week delay. An explanation is required. None is given.
There are also inconsistencies in character behavior. A character finds a bleeding stranger in her bathroom pointing a gun at her, and yet, unbidden, chooses to tend to his wounds. When did she take the Hippocratic oath? In one scene, Saba—after spotting a police checkpoint in the forest—turns back even as there are no threats in his path. Why? He’s also able to vomit on command. Odd.
Still, Egunjobi has crafted a brutal, beautiful film. In story, style, and execution, The Fire and The Moth proves that an unusual vision and creative rigour can yield compelling results in Nollywood, and venturing beyond traditional drama in Nollywood isn’t a death sentence.
The Moth and The Flame is screening on Prime Video.
