VIDEOS IN MOTION - fasopo

discussed in chapter six, the protagonist of Rattlesnake, Ahanna, experiences a very hardadolescence. His father dies when he is still young, and Ahanna’s mother abandons him with hissiblings in the village. After moving to the city to search for his mother, Ahanna becomes a thug,and later a gangster and an armed-robber. As in the case of Anya, the violence he commits is clearlyconnected to the hardship he has been obliged to go through. In both cases, the narrativeconstruction makes the viewer sympathize with the protagonist, seen as a victim rather than aperpetrator. However, the films’ endings are radically different. While at the end of RattlesnakeAhanna dies, perpetually haunted and inevitably caught by the violence of his past, in Ije Anyasurvives. She wins the trial, is freed from prison and starts a new life. While in Rattlesnake theindividual act of hubris, the rebellion against the violence of the established social order, ispunished (Ahanna dies), in Ije a similar act produces a moral success (Anya wins the trial).The moral that we can draw from Rattlesnake tends to be conservative. Ahanna’s attempt to bereinserted in the moral collectivity (he changes his life, investing the money he got from robberiesinto legitimate businesses and setting up a family of his own) fails because the violence hecommitted cannot be forgiven. The film, rather than emphasizing the possibilty of transforming aperson’s own destiny, focuses its attention on the consequences of moral wrongdoings. The failureof Ahanna’s life is the consequence of multiple acts of hubris against the community’s cohesion: onthe one hand, the iniquitous behavior of Ahanna’s mother (she left her children after her husband’sdeath and started a relationship with her husband’s brother, getting finally pregnant of him andcausing Ahanna’s desire for vengeance) and, on the other, Ahanna’s ambition for wealth andwelfare which pushes him to leave the village in order to move to the city (where he commitsvengeance on his mother and accumulates great fortunes as a result of the illegal activities he getsinvolved in). Ahanna’s tragic end is thus a moral warning to the spectator: excesses in pursuingselfish interests bring a person’s life to failure. On the contrary, Anya’s life itinerary, while equallytragic, produces a profoundly different result. Her individual impetus is finally rewarded. Her statusas a victim is recognized. The violence she committed becomes secondary. What instead prevails asthe narrative’s moral is the example of Anya’s personal strength and courage, which made herovercome the obstacles she has encountered throughout her life and gave her the possibility of anew life.203