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[ Review: LUCKY ]
Instant Cult Classic “Lucky” Provides Polarized Lens to Examine
Youth Culture in Accra - hakeem adam
T
hroughout the history of cine-
ma, very few films have had the
pleasure or burden of being truly
iconic, bookmarking a very dis-
tinct period in whichever cul-
ture that inspired them. African cinema will
always have Ousmane Sembène’s La Noire
de…/Black Girl and Kwaw Ansah’s Heritage
Africa or more recently Abderrahmane Sis-
sako’s Timbuktu. ABSTRAKTE Films debut
feature length film, Lucky, positions itself at
the foot of these classics, inspired by that rich
tradition, in an attempt to be truly iconic. The
film, released in September 2018, follows two
young men as they attempt to survive the
relentless tirade of trauma that can be Accra,
Ghana’s capital and in the process, provide
a polarized lens to examine millennial life-
17 | Colossium . December 2018
style and culture through honest and direct
depiction of varied lived experiences. Lucky,
the principal character of the shape shifting
tragi-comedy is in a race with himself, reality
and fortune by restlessly striving for better,
blind to the cost of his better. He attempts to
achieve this with the help of Wadaada, the
film’s low key star performer, who embodies
the “Accra We Dey” spirit of hustling, as he
snakes his way around the hardship of the
city, always emerging with a new skin and a
wry smile. Their ‘bromance’ threads the film
together to present a collage of vignettes that
highlight various social, political and econom-
ic realities that young Ghanaians face.
This collage is more of a puzzle, forged as a
mirage with various seemingly