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BECOMING A WOMAN IN OKRIKA
Judith Gleason and Elisa Mereghetti
1990. VHS videocassette, color, 27 min. Distributed by Filmmakers Library, New York. Rental $55, sale $295.
MONDAY'S GIRLS
Ngozi Onwurah
Produced by Lloyd Gardiner for the BBC, 1993. VHS videocassette, color, 50 min. Distributed by California Newsreel, San Francisco. Rental $75, sale $195.
"To the nomadic tribes of Africa, the pursuit of beauty through decoration and makeup is their greatest form of personal expression in a changing world," claims an advertisement from The Body Shop Book. In a perverse irony, this statement from Anita Roddick's company-which has turned a handsome profit from commodifying the cosmetic customs of remote, exotic "others" and packaging them for affluent Westerners-resonates with the revived anthropological interest in the social construction of the body. This includes attention to the body as a site for the reproduction of gendered meanings as well as an interest in the "socialized" body as a vehicle to maintain tradition, mark identity, or resist existing forms of authority and discipline.
Two recent films set in the Rivers State area of Nigeria, Becoming a Woman in Okrika (1990) and Monday's Girls (1993), cut across this terrain in their strikingly different depictions of Iria, a five-week coming-of-age ceremony which transforms Okrikan and Waikiriki girls of the Niger Delta into marriageable women. Interestingly, both films are the product of women filmmakers (and collaborators) looking at a cultural practice which involves and defines African women. Becoming a Woman is a collaboration between anthropologist Judith Gleason and filmmaker Elisa Mereghetti. This work is very much a personal document marked by the authoritarian voice and shots of its collaborators. Characterized by stunning images, a play with aesthetic surfaces, and a narrative style inclined toward the mythopoetic, its portrayal of ritual is dominated by reverential overtones which essentialize the meanings of Iria.
In contrast, Monday's Girls, directed by Anglo-Nigerian filmmaker Ngozi Onwurah, situates Iria at the crossroads between tradition and modernity. This made-for-television documentary in the BBC's popular "Under the Sun" series takes as its starting point the stories of two young women entering this rite, each of different family backgrounds and with their own aspirations for the future.l In the film's portrayal of their lived experience, these social actors emerge as identifiable persons...