VIDEOS IN MOTION - fasopo

elatively artisanal special effects added to further dramatize the action (an un-naturalistic neon-likegreen light and an unsettling electronic soundtrack), while creating an almost hallucinatoryatmosphere, do not filter the violence of the scene. Again, paradoxically, the imperfection of thespecial effects, instead of reducing the images verisimilitude, ends up, at least in my view,accentuating it. The goat is physically killed in front of the camera and the scene has a strongimpact on the viewer, who feels directly involved in the sacrifice. 121VII: Living in Bondage : Andy’s madnessVIII: This is Nollywood: turning a generator on after a power disruptionThe other scene plays on a different level. In this case Andy, who has become mad because hiswife’s ghost keep on haunting him, walks around the market harassing street vendors and digginginto the rubbish bins in search of food (image VII). The absence of professional extras and ofartificial lighting, the shaky camera movements, and the people’s reactions to Andy’s behaviormake the scene, like the previous one, look particularly “true”. Again, we have the feeling that thereis no mediation between the scene and the reality that surrounds it. In this case, the way the peoplein the market react to Andy’s movements make the artificiality of the scene evident (they look intothe camera, they crowd around Andy starring at him in a definitely non-naturalistic way), but as Iunderlined earlier, this particular artificiality, by marking the intrusion of the behind-the-camerareality into the film, has a powerful effect which makes the scene appear as “real”.The intrusion of the behind-the-camera reality into videos’ film language thus marks videos’production at all levels. As numerous scenes in the documentaries about Nollywood evidence, forinstance, Nollywood producers and directors have often to deal with unpredictable events that can121 Brian Larkin’s above mentioned formulation of an “aesthetic of outrage” which creates a particular sentiment ofrevulsion in the viewer seems to be particularly fitting in this context (Larkin 2008:: ch. 6).163