I was brought up in the village and while growing up, I detested watching movies shot in village settings. The reason for this is that I already knew what a village was like and I wasn't fascinated watching movies done in villages.
I preferred knowing more about city life. I wanted to know how things were done in the city. Those days, I got fascinated with beautiful cities, the pattern of dressing of the people and every other exposition about cities being portrayed in movies.
"Wow, see this bridge."
"This house is fine."
"They have nice roads in the city ooo."
These were some of the exclamations that used to come out from me when watching city movies.
There was a gradual paradigm shift as I was progressing through my education. My love for city styled movies began to wane while my love for village movies started increasing.
The reason for this shift was that as I proceeded with my education, I began to see the reality of cities while I moved away from village life and its movies. It got to a point that I realized that village styled movies pass unique messages better than city styled movies.
I realized that one city is almost the same with another while villages are mostly unique in their culture and other identities. What I am saying is that when I watch a movie shot in Lagos and compared with another one shot in Abuja, I can't spot major differences in the settings because the two cities share similar urban characteristics. On the other hand, when I watch a movie shot in a village in Anambra and another one shot in a village in Ekiti, it's obvious that the settings would be different. The culture of the people aren't the same.
This now takes us to the reason for me preferring village movies to city movies. Movies shot in villages tend to tell the story of the people or show their culture to the rest of the world. A good way of preserving one's culture is by portraying it in movies for the new generation to get the knowledge of it.
I lost count of how many times that I had to engage my father to explain some movie scenes for me. The scenes illustrate how things were done scores of years ago.
I love the green environment. Village movies display a green environment. They are environmentally friendly. The rowdy nature of the city with its attendant pollution of the environment by the activities of the densely populated city makes it unattractive to me.
You could see people eating fresh fruits directly from the farm in the village. They hardly eat processed foods and this is more healthy. I am an advocate of this kind of living and the more I watch a movie displaying it, the more I learn the best way to live it.
Movies shot in the villages hardly have some contents that corrupt the society. It will be difficult to act out an armed robbery scene in the village. It's mostly a city kind of movie. This makes me prefer village movies in order to limit the exposure of the young population to some vices.
Some movies promote internet frauds and other vices. Doing away with such movies is a priority. As a result, I prefer village movies.
Though not all city movies are undesirable to me, my preference anyday anytime is a village styled movie when watching the culture and heritage of my people and other parts of the world.
Thank you for your time.