There’s enough time to discuss the choices in Tunde Apalowo‘s All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White. Before we do all of that, let’s talk about it’s plot. Its protagonist, Bambino (Tope Tedela), lives in Lagos and works as a delivery boy. He meets Bawa (Riyo David), who works at a betting shop and is an aspiring photographer. On a whim, Bawa decides to take an artistic photo of Bambino wearing his motorcycle helmet. This begins a friendship where they visit all of Lagos’s landmarks. Lagos is a city that still comes off as beautiful despite of the film. Bawa takes pictures of Bambino, leading to more. There are hindrances to their relationship, the obvious one being that they live in Nigeria. The film depicts the country as one that equates homosexuality to other crimes like petty theft, making them susceptible to mob violence.

Other than the colour grading that looks worse in Colours than it does it its trailer, the film makes this bizarre decision to make the two leads and one supprting character the have the only faces that the viewers can see. The third character is Ifenyinwa (Martha Ehinome Orhiere) whose flirtations with Bambino make her kind of iconic. The rest of the characters feel like the adults in a Charlie Brown film. There are also scenes where mobs beat gay men or set petty thieves on fire that come of as more comedic than horrific, which would have been great had that effect been intentional but it obvious isn’t. That decision is understandable though, since most actors in Nigeria may not want to be visible in a film with this subject. But this causes a disconnect nonetheless, putting the main characters in what seems like an incomplete void-like world.