Kannywood Movie Review: Gudun Mutuwa

Director: Falalu A. Dorayi

Producer: Tahir I. Tahir

Company: Prince Zango Production

Cast: Falalu A Dorayi, Halima Atete, Adam A. Zango, Hajara Haidar, Sulaiman Bosho.

Release date: 10th October, 2019

The occurrence of Marital jealousy is natural in polygamous homes for obvious reasons. Feuds and fights always arise between the co-wives. As a result, most women are frightened into taking protective measures to retain their monogamous homes. In their effort to achieve that, some excessively jealous women go to the extent of interfering in the personal affairs of their husbands to eliminate any perceived threat of having a co-wife. This brings a change in the dimension of the marital jealousy to aggression and violent attacks on husbands by their wives even prior to the remarriage.

On 18th November, 2017, Maryam Sanda was remanded in custody for killing her huband, Bilyaminu Bello. While she was on trial, which lasted until January 2020, a similar incident occurred again. It was another woman, Rashida Muhammad, that pushed her husband from the upstairs to his death on 25th February, 2019 for suspecting him of having a phone conversation with his girlfriend. Moreover, on 16th of July, the same year, Daily post reported that a 35 year old Lauratu, had burned, with boiled water, the thigh and private part of her husband because he was planning to marry a second wife!

Gudun Mutuwa is a film inspired by these rampant jealousy-caused assaults in our society. It is a satirical comedy-drama In which Falalu dorayi, portrays an unfaithful husband (Sulaiman). His wife's effort to deter him proves powerless. One day, they watch in the news that a woman slays her husband based on allegations of infidelity. Knowing that he does the same, Sulaiman gets extremely scared, and out of guilt, thinks that his wife could slay him as well. Subsequently, he becomes ridiculously funny by taking unnecessary tactics to avoid his imagined danger of being killed by her -- hence the film's tittle, Gudun Mutuwa (Avoiding death). In the end, he reconciles with his wife and they live happily ever after.

The film satirically deplores infidelity and excessive jealousy. It also suggests alternative resolution to common marital disputes.

Be reminded, jealousy is one of the recurrent themes in Kannywood films and therefore, following the aforementioned cases of fatal domestic violence, many people put the blame on Kannywood. So, apart from taking up the disturbing issue, Gudun Mutuwa also counters that blame.

Regarding the cast, the portrayal of Halima Atete as a housewife is appropriate but her performance is overshadowed by Falalu dorayi's who plays the role of her husband with a flair. Adam Zango pulls off a superb act as Dorayi's best friend, and Hajara Haidar, a new face in the role of Atete's friend, also leaves a solid impact. Additionally, the guest appearance of Sulaiman Bosho makes the film more entertaining.

The film is without any singing and dancing sequence. It nevertheless, suffers from bad background music. The dialogue is also faulty among other things.

In conclusion, Gudun mutuwa is a watchable film and, for its subject matter and the actors' performances, I give to it 3 out of 5 stars.

Reviewed by:

Habibu Maaruf Abdu

20/04/2020