Criterion Challenge 202532. Ayo Edebiri’s Closet PicksEyimofe (This is My Desire), directed by Chuko Esiri & Arie Esiri, 2020
I love Criterion’s Criterion Closet videos because it is so wonderful to see people so involved in filmmaking or even so dedicated to it as an art form talk about film itself and what it means to them. Their personalities really shine through when they’re selecting films from the collection and what they mean to them. Ayo Edebiri selected this film, singling out its country of origin, Nigeria, and how much that meant to her. This film wasn’t on my radar before. There’s so much in the Criterion Collection, I’m not surprised I hadn’t heard of it, but what did surprise me was hearing the weight it had on another person. I had to check this film out.
The film splits its time between two protagonists: Mofe and Rosa. The two never interact, but occupy the same spaces, share similar people in their lives, and share a similar want: to emigrate to Europe. Mofe wants to go to Spain while Rosa wants to move to Italy with her sister. Mofe’s plans are halted due to the inconceivable loss of his sister and her children. Rosa’s plans are contingent on the health and exploitation of her sister - and the conditional generosity of the wealthy. Both stories weigh the happiness of their protagonists against the morality of their protagonists and grapple with what that means for both of them - both Mofe and Rosa in the end having to stay in Nigeria instead of traveling abroad and how they manage that against their own joy. There’s small moments of beauty in this struggle, and the conclusions reached are ones that are pragmatic but not presented as a compromise, necessarily.
The Esiri Brothers tenderly craft the scenes in a way to where warmth emanates from small spaces. There are a lot of shots where I am just surprised by how they emphasize the location of their characters in absurdly simple ways. The way they frame Rosa in such circumstances are completely different from how they frame Mofe but yet there’s a similar isolating factor to both. Dirty windows, the pressing of organic forms against mechanical ones, strong contrasting colours, etc. all shape the visual language of the people and their spaces, leaning into the distance between the camera and its subjects. This leads to a repetition of familiarity as Mofe and Rosa move about, with diorama-like compositions grounding us when the focus is about the community rather than the individual.
Criterion Challenge 202532. Ayo Edebiri’s Closet PicksEyimofe (This is My Desire), directed by Chuko Esiri & Arie Esiri, 2020
I love Criterion’s Criterion Closet videos because it is so wonderful to see people so involved in filmmaking or even so dedicated to it as an art form talk about film itself and what it means to them. Their personalities really shine through when they’re selecting films from the collection and what they mean to them. Ayo Edebiri selected this film, singling out its country of origin, Nigeria, and how much that meant to her. This film wasn’t on my radar before. There’s so much in the Criterion Collection, I’m not surprised I hadn’t heard of it, but what did surprise me was hearing the weight it had on another person. I had to check this film out.
The film splits its time between two protagonists: Mofe and Rosa. The two never interact, but occupy the same spaces, share similar people in their lives, and share a similar want: to emigrate to Europe. Mofe wants to go to Spain while Rosa wants to move to Italy with her sister. Mofe’s plans are halted due to the inconceivable loss of his sister and her children. Rosa’s plans are contingent on the health and exploitation of her sister - and the conditional generosity of the wealthy. Both stories weigh the happiness of their protagonists against the morality of their protagonists and grapple with what that means for both of them - both Mofe and Rosa in the end having to stay in Nigeria instead of traveling abroad and how they manage that against their own joy. There’s small moments of beauty in this struggle, and the conclusions reached are ones that are pragmatic but not presented as a compromise, necessarily.
The Esiri Brothers tenderly craft the scenes in a way to where warmth emanates from small spaces. There are a lot of shots where I am just surprised by how they emphasize the location of their characters in absurdly simple ways. The way they frame Rosa in such circumstances are completely different from how they frame Mofe but yet there’s a similar isolating factor to both. Dirty windows, the pressing of organic forms against mechanical ones, strong contrasting colours, etc. all shape the visual language of the people and their spaces, leaning into the distance between the camera and its subjects. This leads to a repetition of familiarity as Mofe and Rosa move about, with diorama-like compositions grounding us when the focus is about the community rather than the individual.
