Film Review: Haƙƙi

Title: Haƙƙi

Company: Iyantama Multi-Media

Producer: Hamisu Iyantama

Director: Hafizu Bello

Year:  2018

Haƙƙi is a good movie compared with other movies, but not a standard of what a film should be for Kannywood industry. One thing admirable about the movie is its core subject matter, which radically departs from the much-criticized love theme of which common narrative is: a boy meets a girl, they fall in love but there is a feud between the families; they’ll manage to get married in the end and live happily ever after. 

The film runs two items concurrently: exploitative labor practice and cache of female criminal who use their body to lure male victims into their den and rob them at gun point in collaboration with other men. 

At a more pronounced level the movie shows the role of labor union and is an exposé of poor working condition and company intrigues. Jabir, the dedicated labor union rep in a leather factory, puts his life on the line to defend the rights of his men. Scheming follows and sabotage; some elements within the union and the company management work to stop him. One of the factory workers slips and knocked his head. He is taken to the clinic from the factory in concussion, the company grants stipend as his medical bill. When he finally dies, the management is not forthcoming with the payment of his benefits.

Jabir is set to fight for that. But would he give up in the face of fierce adversary and attempts at his life?This is what defines the movie and for that, it is a very good theme selection worthy your dollar to watch. Despite that, however, the film cries for what the industry lacks in terms of technical aspects.

I believe the industry people have their side of the story, but money apart, from what I can tell they don’t seem to appreciate professionalism, and unwittingly producers like to disallow competent hands they hire to execute their work. At another level, while producing movies, they don’t seem to have global audience in their mind. Otherwise you wouldn’t have found basic errors in most of their films such as atrocious subtitling. This, I understand, comes from want of appreciation of good English usage and unawareness of the implication bad English subtitling can have on indigenous-language films.

What’s more, the film does not look at environmental damages that companies cause. Labor union plays an important role, but it is cast in a light too good for what obtains in reality. If that is deliberate, then we can understand, otherwise no deal. 

Nonetheless, I have come to understand the nuanced constraints the industry faces even though some challenges are not really insurmountable. They are repeatedly pointed out, so the question is why they refuse to go?