From the Berlin International Film Festival comes director Babatunde Apalowo’s All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White, the story of Bambino (Tope Tedela) and Bawa (Riyo David), two Nigerian men in Lagos wrestling with their sexuality in an extremely homophobic society. I was about to call it a ‘delicate story’ because Bambino and Bawa do share many tender moments, but it’s hard to say delicate when they face the constant threat of violence for being gay.
Bambino is a delivery driver. The movie shows its offbeat side right away as he asks his boss for the promotion promised to him after one year of work. We see Bambino in profile through the doorway to his boss’s office. We can hear the boss’s office voice but he is completely obscured by a wall. Later a neighbour asks Bambino for a little money. We can see her arms poking through the doorway to his apartment, but again none of her face.
Bawa is one of only two more people whose face we will see in full. He faces the camera as he works behind the counter of his betting shop. Bambino enters with his white motorcycle helmet in hand. It’s only their first meeting but Bawa immediately asks him to put the helmet back on so he can take his picture.
The other face we see in full is Ifeyinwa’s (Martha Ehinome Orhiere). She’s Bambino’s young neighbour who lets herself into his apartment so often you could think she lives there. She’s introduced in a destabilizing way to the viewer’s understanding of what is happening and who is who. We first see her posed seductively on a bed saying that she’s a prostitute. We wonder if Bambino has wandered into a brothel but his reaction makes it seem like this is his girlfriend trying out some sexual roleplay. They finally make it crystal clear that their relationship is non-romantic and that Bambino has never had sex with a woman. They’re just friends who sit around and read books together, although Ifeyinwa does want more.
Violence occurs in the margins. On two separate occasions, Bambino (who seems to have an issue consuming the food cooked for him by the people he knows personally) sits at a street food vendor. In his peripheral vision, a group of men harass a man for wearing trousers that are too tight. On his second trip for street food, a thief is chased down. The crowd pours gasoline on him and lights him on fire. Bambino does not react.
Bambino is very hard to read. Neither sad or happy. He is this way for very good reasons of self-protection. The most naked moment of desire in the movie is Ifeyinwa for Bambino. He at one point googles “How do I know if I’m…” This is the closest the movie will come to saying the word ‘gay’ until near the end when it’s used heartbreakingly as a weapon against him.
The director Apalowo is simultaneously having a movie debut in Berlin and getting a Master’s in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science. Asking Google a form of this question must be fairly common these days, finishing it with whatever it is that plagues you. I’ve done it a couple times. It’s funny to imagine a Data Scientist making such a tender movie by mining these questions and answers. Also a lot of the movie is deliberately offbeat but occasionally feels uncanny like it was written by an AI. Mostly the ending to Ifeyinwa’s story which is a bit tacked on. But the strong stylistic choices pay off massively in a scene between Bambino and his mom. Her face isn’t shown like all the other characters who aren’t Bambino, Bawa, or Ifeyinwa. A brilliant way to show the alienation he feels.
You cannot waste time, just your life. Time is infinite. Something infinite cannot be wasted. Bawa asks Bambino if they’re just wasting their time dancing around what the nature of their relationship truly is, and that’s how Bambino answers. It’s the extremely defensive answer you’d expect from someone terrified to be what they are.
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