Metaphors of Igbo Worldviews on Ghosts as Mystical Realities: Interpretations of Filmic Portrayals as Archetypal and Imaginative Visual Aesthetics in Two Nollywood Films

Abstract

This study examines the aesthetics and shades of portrayals of ghosts as supernatural and metaphysical realities in two Nollywood films Heart of a Ghost and A Ghost Story as representations of Igbo worldviews on ghosts' realities. Our aim is to present an analytical explanation of the filmic attributions in relation to historical as well as the subsisting socio-cultural worldviews of the Igbo people regarding ghosts. Therefore to extrapolate on the subsumed Igbo worldviews and philosophies about ghosts in the selected films, this study adopts theoretical purviews on magical realism and Charles Peirce's inclination on interpretive community theory as the preferred conceptual praxis. Furthermore, this study applies critical interpretive analysis as the adopted analytical approach. Thus, the relevance of these portrayals to the subsisting sociocultural worldviews about ghosts among the Igbo forms part of our thematic purview. Essentially this study sufficiently provides plausible answers to questions bothering on whether ghosts exist in the manner portrayed in the two films, as well as plausible analysis of the significations of ghosts' appearances in clothing and whether ghosts do change their clothing like humans from time to time.

Victimhood, Health Challenges and Violent Restiveness in Blood and Oil: Music, Characterization and Colours as Metaphors

“…Our view on Cloete's contribution is that her idea essentially revolves around the understanding that as individuals view films, they are consistently presented with longlasting glimpses of other people's embedded ways-of-life, history, philosophy, environment, worldview(s) and their other social realities. Thus, the widely accepted scholarly view is that seeing films will in many ways help viewers to deepen their understanding of several subject matters about people and their societies which are subsumed in the films (see Cloete 2017;Aniago et al 2020). Therefore, the "film medium in many ways is like the literary arts in its mechanics and dynamics of entertaining, embedding, consolidating, and re-aligning of both culture-specific and universal ideas in the consumers" (Aniago et al 2020: 1).…”