“Landline”: Dele Doherty’s Timeloop Films Skillfully Evades Providing Answers

Dele Doherty’s Landline is a slow-burning, timeloop film that throws more questions at viewers than it answers. The film, from its first to last scene, purposely throws its audience on a tense loopy journey where Shalewa, an expectant mother, (played by the ever-delightful Zainab Balogun) and Kola, his husband and a soldier, (the brilliant Gabriel Afolayan) has to collectively find a solution to an assured tragedy. The film drops droplets of fear, mystery, unanswered questions and unexplained characters and voices into the narrative while the couples, in separate locations, try finding a permanent solution to a looming tragedy. 

Doherty’s debut feature length film which he wrote, directed and produced, reinforced a statement:  Storytelling isn’t just in writing. As Leonardo Di Caprico, Denzel Washington and Robert De Niro and other top performers will tell you, it’s in an actors’ performance. As Hans Zimmer, Ludwig Göransson, Tolu Obanro and other film composers will tell you, storytelling is also in  the careful handpicking of sounds and music that tudge the heart and core of the film. As Wes Anderson’s cinematographers and art directors will tell you, it’s in shooting style, camera angles and art and set design. Storytelling is in the tiny details even to the picking of extras as Christopher Nolan will articulate in his picking of actual scientists as extra when casting for Oppenheimer. As keen viewers will observe, Landline pays attention to these storytelling elements. The actors’ performances carry the film. The cinematography and lighting simultaneously carry the sense of mystery and thrill the characters are faced with. 

Landline, as a one-location and slow burning film, dwells on the gripping tension amongst the couple, an assassin (Bucci Franklin) and some voices for its unfurling of details and information. As the couple’s listlessly converse, Kunle talks to his father and strange calls start tripping in, we know a tragedy is set to happen and watch as the couple relentlessly find a way to prevent its happening. Questions, information and details are being given without providing comprehensive follow-up explanation. The film skillfully evades answering pertinent questions about the narrative. Who is Kola? Why is he placed in a safe house by the military? What breaking news is his father alluding to during their call? Who are the mysterious voices calling him? More importantly, what protest is being spoken about? The film’s inability to provide articulated and comprehensive responses to these questions isn’t because of a lack of answers. It ties back to the director’s intention of wanting viewers to work towards a possible meaning and understanding of these questions. Judging by the recency of the End Sars Protest and the tragic killings of Nigerians by the Nigerian soldiers, it’s possible to allude the film’s mentioned protest to the End Sars Protest or other similar protest in the country that has involved Nigerians and the Nigerian military over the years. The 2001 massacre of over 100 civilians in Benue State comes to mind. 

On a psychological level, the film, like other timeloop-prone films, exploits the place of decisions, learning, choices and effects of taking steps in human’s daily life and experiences. Films that employ this plot device are prone to capturing repeated and cyclical actions with the intention of noting characters’ growth and audiences’ ability to discern minute and subtle details that can end the loop. A bendable device, different directors can use it to make political and social commentary. This device in the hand of a skilled director like Travon Free in Two Distant Stranger, becomes a political commentary on  Black  Lives  Matter where unmindful of the careful and meticulously calculated moves you make as a black man, the possibility of being killed by a trigger happy white officer is high. In Michael Omonua’s Loop Count, it picks an almost ambiguous narrative tone where conversation around memory, personal choices, consent, truthfulness in marriage and body autonomy are tactically broached. In Samuel Yinka Aiki’s Labyrinth, it culturally explores themes of forgiveness, acceptance, accountability and moving on.  Picking on the political spirit of Free’s Two Distant Strangers, Landline flirts with the idea of silencing a military officer with top information. Resonating with the ambiguity of Omonua’s Loop Count, Doherty’s film guides us through a layered journey of these characters.  

Nollywood is still in its infancy. In the scarcity of bullet-proof-strong and sustainable, the industry is still building. Industry players like actors, director-for-hire, crew members are still individually attempting to solve industry problems. While these are going on in the background, filmmakers are choosing to tell stories, in whatever genre, shape and quality they choose. And, in this constantly evolving and experimental phase of the industry, it’s welcoming  to see films like Landline move  away from the mainstream genre and fashion its own course.