Lajok The Night Dancer

alt-text for Lajok (The Night Dancer)

Logo of Dilstories. It looks like a smiley face, white lines against a blue disc.

Film title, in scary font, Lajok: The Night Dancer

A film by, Dilman Dila

An African man, perhaps in his thirties, dressed generally in black clothing that looks cheap, and a coat that says he tried too much. He holds a shiny, green gift box as he leans against a wall fence, beside a large metallic gate, tapping his foot gently as if to music only he can hear.

Bolts clunk as someone opens the gate, and now a woman steps out. She has red hair in an afro-centric style, and is dressed in a pink top and loose pants that match the colour of her hair. She holds a bag, obviously going somewhere.

The man steps closer to her, and she stops, scowling. He smiles hard, showing all his teeth, and gives her the gift box. Her brows crease in a frown, giving him a look that says, ‘Oh you, again?’. Perhaps he has been stalking her for a while and she is fed up. She crosses her hands across her chest and glares at him.

His hands drop in dismay at the rejection, his smile fades away. She walks past him, not giving him another glance, and walks up the residential street. It’s a dirt road in a neighbourhood with a lot of undeveloped plots. She emerged from a newly built storied house, which sits at a cross roads. It sits at the bottom of a grassy hill and the only other buildings in sight are incomplete. An electric pylon soars in the distance, and the sky is a cold and cloudless.

The man watches her go, a sad look on his face, holding the gift box with a deep pain in his heart. Then, his phone beeps, and he picks it out of his pocket to find a message, a GIF file with an animated crying emoji in between two broken hearts, under the word REJECTED? Below the emoji is a tag line, in upper case, MAKE HER LOVE YOU, and then an invitation to a site with CLICK HERE. At the bottom of the message, is a logo of a nefarious organisation called The Clique of Jilted Hearts. The logo has a broken heart with an arrow pricking it. The man is surprised to find this message. He looks around. Is someone watching? But no, there can’t be anyone in sight, as the neighbourhood looks isolated.

In a street somewhere nearby, an old woman sits on the veranda of a small retail shop, which is closed. The next shop, in the background, is open and bottled drinks are stacked on the floor. In the far background a car is parked, but we only see a part of it. The old woman wears a worn-out blue gomesi dress, and has a beggars plate. She lifts it up to someone off-screen, obviously asking for alms. We soon see this person is the woman with red hair. She walks past the old woman, ignoring her plea for a few coins. The old woman is disappointed.

Then we see the old woman from another angle, which shows more of the street, more shops in the background, with children clustered around one of these shops. The pavement is bare ground, though it looks neat, we expect it to be dusty on a windy day. A motorcycle is parked under a shelter in front of the shops. In the far background is a tarmacked road, with cars speeding by. The woman returns, and walks back to the old woman, drops a generous bank note into her plate. The old woman is overjoyed.

It is now night time in a small room in a restaurant, where a group of people have gathered around a birthday cake. Candles burn and a single overhead light casts a beam upon the table. They sing a version of ‘Happy birthday to you’ to the woman, who smiles, not knowing what to do with herself. Then the song ends and she blows out the candles, and her friends clap and cheer.

It’s late in the night. Owls hoot, frogs creak. The gate clanks and opens as the woman returns home from the party. She walks to her door, but she sees something, and stops, frowning in puzzlement, her face tilts to the side as though to get a better look. Then we see it, a gift box on her doorstep. It’s blue, with a hand written note that says ‘From Dad’.

She picks it up, and holds it a moment, perhaps debating whether to open, perhaps gathering courage to see what her dad sent. When she rips it open, she finds a doll from a local craft shop. It looks crude, just fabrics stuffed with cotton into the shape of a person, and embroidery on its face to mimic eyes and a mouth, giving it an unblinking stare. It wears a dress with a black and white geometric pattern. She turns the doll over, confusion deepening the crease on her brows.

There’s something else in the box. She dips her hand in to pull out a letter, which she reads with an ever deepening frown.

Outside her gate, there’s a pile of dry banana leave in a trench. It stirs, and a figure emerges from underneath. It’s the man who attempted to give her a gift. His body is smeared in ash, and he is naked save for a skirt made of dry banana leaves. There’s a gourd strapped to his waist, but we can barely see it. This is a night dancer’s costume, and he has something extra, which night dancers normally don’t carry around. A djembe drum.

In her house, in a modest living room with green flower-patterned curtains and cream-coloured sofas, the woman re-reads the letter. It’s in her father’s handwriting. Though we can barely see what’s on the letter, it says, “My dear daughter, I hope this reminds you of your first job. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me? Always, your dad.” She looks at the doll again, perhaps memories of her father run through her head.

Then, with a sigh, she puts the doll and the letter on the coffee table, which is black and has a red tablecloth with a pattern of stripes in different colours. A bushy flower in a pot sits in the middle of the table. She removes her jewellery as she prepares to turn in for the night. Her earrings click and jingle as she takes them off.

Outside her gate, the man stands in the middle of the road. It’s a moonlit night, and everything looks blue and eerier. Owls and frogs make a racket. The man lifts one hand and strikes his drum, a single note and then his fingers dance on the drum, playing a tune that seems innocuous, but, inside the woman’s house, the doll awakes.

The doll is on the coffee table, beside the flower pot. Its hands move, and then it raises its head. Though it is right in front, her head is tilts sideways as she removes the earring, she doesn’t see it.

The drumming intensifies, and the doll’s neck stretches, becoming longer and snake-like, and then with a rubbery squeaky sound, the doll sits up. The woman now sees it, and in a moment of horror, she realises it could not have been from her father. Too late.

The tune morphs into a drum roll and the doll stands, it’s hair grows longer, and her face distorts in fear. She slowly gets up from the sofa, and walks backward, never taking her eyes off the monstrosity. The doll is now about two feet tall, and it has taken off its dress, so it is stark naked, just like the night dancer controlling it. It looks at her with a certain innocence in its embroidered eyes, perhaps begging her to play with it. The woman presses herself against the wall, but the evil thing does not go away.

And so she runs. It stands between her and the door, so she can’t flee from the house. She bolts to the bedroom, looking for a place to hide. The night dancer sees her through the eyes of the doll. He strikes his drum, a single note, that stops her, and enslaves her spirit. The doll bends backward, distorting its body into a grotesque posture, and the woman, under its spell, bends her body likewise, and she walks backwards in sync with the doll. The night dancer plays a tune, almost humorous, to bring her back into the living room. It’s a painful position for her and we get a sense that her body will break.

She fights. She finds the power in herself to resist spell, and, momentarily free, she runs to the bedroom to hide. But the night dancer beats the drum again, and it once again casts a spell that enslaves her spirit. Now, he beats the drum again and again to break her down, each stroke is like a whip that strikes her body and she jerks in pain, groaning in agony. Yet, somehow, she overpowers him, and takes a moment to catch her breathe, before bolting into another run hoping to hide in her bedroom. He strikes the drum again, and the doll jumps and stumps both feet on the table, stopping her run. Again, it bends backwards until its body creates a rough you shape, and in this posture it drags the woman back into the living room.

Her body is in a position that isn’t really normal for human beings, and when we see her emerge from the bedroom door, we can see the pain on her face. So much pain. The doll marches backwards on the table and the woman follows in sync, until she finds the power to resist again. This time, the night dancer plays a tune that will complete the hypnosis, so that he can completely take over her body, but in that moment, she finds a chance to break free.

Only for a short while, for now the night dancer changes the tune to a very furious beat, and the doll spins on its toes, perhaps like a ballet dancer, like a raging whirlwind, and the woman’s body twists and spins in sync. Then, it jumps and sends her crashing against the wall with an agonized thud.

The doll must now do the dance that will complete the hypnosis, but it’s not working. And the woman, as she leans against the wall, breathing heavily in fear, merely glances at the doll as it gyrates its waist. She tries to run again, and the night dancer strikes his drum again, and then repeats the whirlwind dance and throws her hard against the wall. To break her. She is a strong woman, and won’t be broken down so easily. Whenever she gets the chance, she tries to run, only for the night dancer to drum the furious drumbeats and throw her against the wall.

She’s human. The twisting and spinning dance and the slams against the wall wear her down. And now, when the doll does it hypnosis dance, she can’t resist. It makes her do several dance strokes, starting with one that makes her hands shoot away from her body, as if reaching out to grab something. The doll is stretchy, and so its hands elongate, but her body can’t elongate, and she groans in pain, putting on a braveness in spite of it all and not crying out aloud though these dance strokes are torture.

Again, the doll bends her backwards, and now it spins her around, and they face each other in this posture. She breathes heavily, now totally powerless. The dancing resumes, and perhaps to torture her some more, the doll throws her onto the ground and puts her body in the kind of position someone would get into when they do a back flip but stop midway, such that her hands are on the floor, her head dangling between her elbows. The doll walks in this way manner, like an animal turned upside down but its limbs are still on the ground, and it has to walk.

Upon rising from this position, she’s weak, and each dance stroke shows she has very little energy left. She looks about to collapse, yet the doll does not allow her to. Now, without any resistance left, it walks out of her house, bent backwards such that her body almost forms an arch, her arms swinging widely with each step she takes for she can’t control them any more. The lights go out, and then all we have is the moonlight.

The night dancer drums, waiting for her. Since he has to take her far from her home, the dance changes to something that looks like she is about to run, even as she shakes her waists.

He takes her to his home, where a single bulb above his door throws a harsh light onto him. The walls are bare bricks, and the windows have wooden shutters. Behind him is a white house, and a wall fence topped with barbed wire enclosing houses of richer folk. He drums steadily, and the woman comes dancing into his home. Just before she enters, she again bends backwards, her body arcing into a painful posture, and this way she enters his home.

It’s a single room, a muzigo, with newspapers pasted all over the wall, imitating wallpaper to beautify for it mostly likely has no plaster, and no paint. Clothes hang on nails on the wall, and an old fashioned TV sits on a chest of drawers, beside a rack with old video tapes and CDs. A dirty looking curtain divides the muzigo into two, giving it a living room and a bedroom section, but for now this curtain is tied up so we can see the entire room. Another curtain, blue and white with flowers, hides an open window, which shines bright, glowing in the dimly lit room. This window is above the bed, which is so small only one person can fit in it. The woman walks in, bent backwards, and then a final beat of the drum sends her falling onto the bed.

There, she lies inert, staring straight up, her breathe heavy and painful, and tears creep out of her eyes and roll down into her ears.

The night dancer comes in, and does a victory dance, the dry banana leaves cheering him on. He puts down his drum, and sits on the bed, then leans over the woman. She can’t fight him off.

We can only imagine what happens next, for now we see a beautiful picture. Tall green grass sway in the wind, in front of banana plants, behind which there is a cloudless sky. It looks like it’s almost sunset. Birds sing happy songs, and the wind whispers to whoever cares to listen.

The old woman walks, but she’s barely noticeable through the talk grass. She still wears her blue gomesi dress. She stops, perhaps sensing something in the grass, and steps closer to take a look. What she sees shocks her speechless. It’s the woman, lying in bloody bedsheets, naked. She looks to be unconscious, or perhaps just in so much pain that she can’t move. Her back is to us.

The old woman picks her up from the bush and wraps a yellow lesu around her, and then takes her back to her home, which is a modest house with bare bricks walls and no visible window. It looks like a rather large muzigo. They walk in from the left, past wooden chicken houses. On the right side is a row of other single-room apartments. Behind these buildings are trees, and many banana plants indicate a garden. The old woman takes the young woman into her house.

Time passes, for clouds speed past the moon. Owls hoot, and frogs respond, and the night folk make merry. Perhaps a few days go by, perhaps a month.

The old woman stirs medicine in a small clay bowl, which sits on a small battery powered stove. She scoops the medicine using a spoon into a plastic mug, and gives it to the woman, who drinks and then puts the cup down. They are inside the old woman’s muzigo. They sit on papyrus mats and on a bark cloth rob. The walls are old, cracked, the paint peeling off. Plants, perhaps medicinal, hung on nails on the wall. Old iron-sheets board off the window, below which is an old basket of clothes. A hurricane lamp sits on a stool near the basket. Blue and red curtains, with embroidery of flowers, divides the room into two, though we see only the living room section.

The old woman stands, and in near silence shows the woman a dance move. The woman stands up too, and copies the move, but she is clumsy and the old woman holds her feet to show her how to do the dance. Then she sort of gets it and continues to practice. The old woman squats beside a big drum, and beats a tune.

More time passes for we can see the moon shining over the suburb. There are few lights out, though. Owls hoot, and frogs make merry, and the night insects go crazy. The moonlight makes everything look blue, and we are in the backyard of the old woman’s house. The woman comes from the front, through a narrow dark corridor, to the backyard. She carries a drum. The old woman follows her, and sits beside the drum. She beats the tune they rehearsed to, and the woman dances, her moves now fluid and professional. And powerful.

She dances into the banana plantation. Graves with crude crosses made out of sticks gleam in the moonlight. They have no gravestones, just bare earth. It is a family cemetery. The woman dances around one grave, her arms flies to imitate wings and the beats are something like hiphop. Then there is a final drumming and she falls down.

The old woman picks up a spade and a hoe that lean against a wall. She walks with these through the banana plantation, and leaves them for the woman, who is still supine on the ground. When the old woman leaves, the woman picks up the tools and digs up a grave, each strike of the spade on the ground prompts the old woman to beat a tune that imitate owls, and it seems to say, ‘Open, open, open the door and I eat you.’ Owls sing this when a night dancer comes to your door at night to do his evil things.

Done with digging, she puts down the spade and peeps into the grave. A hand shoots out and slaps hard against the ground as the corpse tries to find a grip. Soon, a head pokes out, it’s eyes are yellow in the darkness, and it wears a suit, the same it was buried in. The woman holds its stare, her eyes white, her red hair looks like flames in the moonlight. The wind blows and banana leaves whisper strange words.

The woman steps away from the grave, encouraging the corpse out of it, as the old woman, who we can’t see, plays the drum. Then, woman and corpse dance in sync in the moonlight. Unlike the doll’s grotesque and body twisting moves, these are more human, and close to what you see on a hip hop music videos. It’s a fusion of African traditional dances and contemporary moves. The last strokes sees them dancing away from the graveyard.

The woman leads the corpse, which follows her every move, down a moonlit road in a grassy hill, with the lights of a town shinning in the distance. They arrive at the night dancer’s home. There are no lights. Everything is dark. The woman does a rolling dance, and now the corpse overtakes her, and with a final beat of the drum, it gives the door a mighty kick, breaking it open.

The night dancer is inside, on his bed, and he jumps in fright when the door is shattered. He looks about to run away, but then relaxes on seeing the woman. Perhaps she has fallen in love with him and has returned for some sex. He smiles at her. She stops at the foot of his bed, looking at him with an intense hatred.

His fantasies are short lived. Drumming erupts, and he turns to the door to see the corpse dancing. His djembe drum is beside the bed. He beats it to awaken his doll, perhaps it can come to his defence. She woman bunches her fist in a dance move that tells us she has disabled his powers, and though he beats the djembe over and over again, in growing desperation, he can’t awaken the doll. It can’t save him.

The corpse grabs him, and drags him out of the house, and it drags him up the moonlit hill. It has tied his hands and leads him using a rope, the woman is behind, with a whip. They make a bit of a humorous procession. It paints the picture of a person leading an animal tethered to a rope, and another person behind that animal with a whip. They dance a type of dance called tamena ibuga, which translates to ‘don’t break the gourd’, and is an entertainment dance from Busoga. Well, people make merry, with beer in the gourds on the ground, and you have to dance while jumping around to avoid stepping on the gourds, almost as though you are dodging land mines.

The man at first follows meekly, but then grows weary of where they are taking him, and so the woman whips him into submission. When they come to the graveyard, he sees what punishment she has in mind and his resistance grows. The dance now makes her whip him hard, and the dead body pulls him with all its strength. He can’t resist.

They take him to the grave, and the woman whips him, and he wants to resist, but he ends up jumping in on his own to avoid more whips. (I should have have the corpse push him into the grave, but well….) The corpse jumps in after him. The man screams from in there, but the corpse puts a hand over his mouth, and he can’t scream any more.

Finally, the drumming stops. The woman pauses to catch her breathe. And then, she picks up a spade and fills up the grave. The old woman joins her, and takes the spade from her hands. The old woman is stronger, and scoops more soil into the grave. Together, the two women fill it up quickly, in spite of cries and please for mercy from the man being buried alive.

And then the credits roll. So many people donated to make this film a success. Thank you all!