A new release in the Cameroon's English-speaking movie industry. The people of Buea, provincial capital city for the South-West, were treated to the film dubbed Double Set-Up by Cameroonian-born Princess Manka Bridget on 4th March 2007. This full-length movie which was shot both in Cameroon and the Netherlands, the director'second country, tells the story of the jealousy that jeopardizes the relationship between two bosom friends.

High-blood patients, watch out! The last images of the production Double Set-Up trace the nightmare of an honest lady. Acting as Grâce, Princess Manka Bridget, out of naivety, looses her husband in the Netherlands. Her former love rather ties the knot with the younger sister of Susan, her best friend. She takes a palm wine tapper as a consoling lover. The heart-broken woman spends all her money to improve on the standard of living of the new man. He embarks on a cocoa exporting business. The social climber and new husband ticks around to rather marry another woman and dumps Grâce as the business flourishes. The heroin's life now ceases to be all honey and milk, for she goes through hell in the beautiful and rebellious city of Bamenda (literally and figuratively).
All the success of Princess Manka Bridget rests in the construction of the meaning to be given to the double pain of the heroin. Her camera is fond of close-up and big close-up shots. They display the ugly face of the wickedness that prevails in Bamenda. She detects the loss of sincerity and faithfulness as friendship values owing to town expanding and modernity. The director's projectors shed light on a bitterness and jealousy which are fanned by the lack of means and unsecured future. Again the backdrop of hardship in the private sector, and of the failure of the public service to address the needs of thousands of jobless degree holders, some people's option is to bite others who have succeeded in making their way through. As such, the relevance of the expression "man is a wolf to man" becomes unprecedented.
The costume designer of the movie also tackles the building of major significance such as cruelty. This is evidenced through the black or red clothes which perfectly fit Susan as she successfully embodies the wicked. The common meaning of these colours heralds misfortune.
The second issue of joy is the adequate use of thematic songs. The non-diegetical music of voice-centred singers like Richard Bona enables the movie to maintain dramatic tension. Besides, attention has to be drawn to the dedramatization of the actors'performance where natural acting outweighs robotic and fixed attitudes.
Scrutinizing Double Set-Up gives room for people to view the sanctioning of journeys, and even nomadism. Travelling from Amsterdam to Bamenda is heading for hell, as this journey triggers a troublesome series of broken hearts. In other words, the movie is in favour of sedentarism, thanks to the abundant use of in-door locations and ellipses. The camera hardly immortalizes out-door settings in a bid to stop people from travelling.
Sexuality is the second level of understanding this rejection of nomadism in Double Set-Up. This is evidenced by Grâce's two husbands. Both are womanizers. As a result, they are outcasts. The woman folk occupy centre stage in decision-making positions. So, men end up being play things that strictly obey the whims of women. Being a slave to sex, they quietly live on the fringes of the community, leaving room for women to act. This dehumanization of men questions and denies their status as characters to reduce them to their simplest expression - not more valuable than mere settings. A deep look at the movie reveals that roles are reversed. Women, who are established as a piece of furniture or an object in African reality, choose to attack men in the cinematographic imaginary.
However, all is not laudable in Princess Manka Bridget's movie. First, her product is too similar to Nollywood films. In this regard, all the dialogues are voice-centred. There is an excess in the use of the angle/reverse angle shot. No word emerges from the area which off camera, except the surrounding noise of the road traffic. It goes without saying that the perchman or sound technician, if there was any at all, did a poor job, for the background sound overwhelms the track of dialogues in a number of sequences. Finally, the ending of the movie is too open. The director neither seems to sanction Grâce's naivety nor Susan (anti-hero)'sadism. Of course, the heroin is shown in a sorry state, but she had already found her way out after the first disappointment in the beginning of the movie. So, she can, as well, secure a new home even if she may eventually suffer other setbacks should fate have it that way. Therefore, the director may leave the power of sanctioning in the hands of the Almighty as the movie advert reads: "Only God can set her free from the set-up".

Télesphore MBA BIZO