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Austen-Peters Bolanle., director. The Bling Lagosians. 2019. 98 minutes. English, Yoruba, Igbo, and Pidgin. Nigeria. BAP Productions. No price reported. Streaming on 9jaRocks.com.
The Bling Lagosians is a colorful, engrossing, refreshing, and multidimensional take on the elite Lagosians. Bolanle Austen-Peters (BAP) offers a unique perspective that encompasses the corruption, consumption, rivalry, and pretension of the corporate elite. Austen-Peters has a sophisticated style which aligns her with the group of significant New Nollywood directors. The Bling Lagosian is a directorial debut for BAP, even though she has previously been a household name in theater and film productions.
The film centers on the Holloway family, a name that sounds like “hollow ways”; this elite wealthy Lagos family has created a quagmire by living a lavishly expensive lifestyle which is well above their means. While they pretend to be wealthy and happy, they are in reality beset by dwindling wealth and family crises. Their family name speaks to their hollow, pretentious, immoral, and corrupt lifestyle, all except for the last daughter, Tokunbo, who seems to break away from the family notoriety in forging her own pristine identity.
Akin Halloway (Gbenga Titiloya) runs St Ives, a corporate entity that is deep in debt while the family owners are living...