SriBuO Release of the Week - A Sting In A Tale - A Shirley Frimpong Manso Film

Hello Ghana Movie lovers,

This week, we are not bringing you an album release. Instead, we are going to make history by screening to you, full-length and in HD an award winning Ghanaian movie: A Sting In A Tale from Sparrow Productions. If you want some background on who Sparrow Productions are, check out their bio on the movie website here .

So let's start you off with the trailer for this movie:

What do you think? The basic premise of the movie is pretty straightforward, you have two recent graduates - Nii Aryee and Kuuku who are struggling to make ends meet. Nii (played by Majid Michael) is the more calm and collected of the two. Kuuku (Adjetey Anang) is the more fiery one and has a bit of a temper.

Without completely revealing the plot, I'll quickly go over some aspects of this film that I think are worth noting. The narrative style Shirley used for the movie is seldom seen in Ghanaian movies. The whole movie is actually a story being told by Kuuku. It is narrated so well that you forget that that is what is actually happening, even though you knew this at the beginning of the movie.

All of the movie's soundtrack was written, recorded and produced in Ghana. In a time when foreign things are the norm, it is refreshing to see a movie production studio rely on our local talent for their content.

Shirley also manages to trick us into believing that things went a certain way in the movie ... when they actually didn't. In an Agatha-Christie-like fashion, she plays out circumstances so that in our minds, there is only one logical conclusion only to lead us to another one after revealing that which we couldn't see. This specific point has something to do with a certain ritual that was performed during the movie. If you haven't seen this movie before, watch that part of the film carefully to see if you can figure out the twist that comes later in the tale.

The spiritual and the supernatural are not new in Ghanaian movies. In fact, you can argue that they are pervasive. Yet no one has explored them in the way Shirley did in this movie. Ghosts in Ghanaian movies are closer to scary ghouls than they are to anything human ... and you certainly don't find them making jokes or laughing. The way in which they were portrayed in A Sting In A Tale made them much more believable and, I'd daresay even likable.

So then now to the final, and I'm guessing most pertinent quesiton concerning this movie ... What exactly was the "STING" in the tale? It is actually not that obvious from watching the film. In order to truly decipher it, you will have to watch multiple times paying close attention to how the ending plays out. Another interesting aspect of this "STING" is that depending on how you view it, it could be more than one happening in the movie, or a combination of events. Every great piece of literary work leaves itself open to multiple interpretations and this movie has done that excellently.

Oh and one last thing ... this movie has the best ever rain, lightning and thunder cinema effects I have seen in a Ghanaian movie. Good job Sparrow Productions.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you - A Sting In A Tale. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb8V8THmLr4