2023 Review

2023 – The Great Reset.

It’s not very often that movies and years have the same title, as a watcher you are likely to remember 2012, the Leap year Mayans predicted was at world’s end and a movie that showed their great expectations. As expected, their expectations were cut short because prophecies left to matter alone do not matter, the physical moves only as effects of causes and until the controllers are engaged to move the causes, prophecies are no more than three wishes.

2023 on the other hand did not promise the world’s end but delivered many ends and new beginnings. Atypically, the director hides his identity in the opening credits, but the scriptwriter is clearly the hand on the wall. A good director is known by the conflicts he resolves, but only great directors are capable of resolving chaos into beauty.

The central theme of 2023 is the great reset, shifting grounds and changing times. A family sets out for a summer vacation but arrives to the cold winter because times and seasons are no longer determined by geography and the calendar. Men that waited long to inherit old thrones find that there is no country for old men, wills are now written by the young for the old, and warriors discover it is better to fight for thrones than men because men are subject to the throne that they sit upon.

In 2023, the game of thrones is a game of musical chairs and because headphones are required to hear the music, we understand why some of the gamblers do not know when to sit or take a stand, when to take a bow or when to run. The men that follow trends walk around without music and are soon out of rhythm.

In the year of the drought, the sheep must know the way of the water because the shepherds themselves will run helter-skelter, and the children must find the rock because parents themselves need shelter.

The Movie 2023 is a thriller, particularly if you’re Nigerian, it is a triple rollercoaster and a billion plot twists. I would recommend popcorn as we watch the end of the Wicked but then I’d put you in harm’s way because spectators are very different from watchers, while the spectators are caught in the eye of the storm, the watchers ride it out.

I would recommend that you be centered, but only the initiated understands that being still and doing nothing are not the same thing. It is a time to hold the eternal and immovable because the world is not enough and besides, it will never stand still.

It is a time to plant, literally and figuratively because the fat cows are part of the cast and the lean cows are part of the crew, they jointly insist that the silos are more important than the banks. If you have seeds, you will move mountains because hard grounds must pave way for ploughs, and true investment is being in league with the earth.

The soundtrack is definitely keb Mo’s “Times are a Changing” because indeed, it will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls for the times are changing. Wisdom and understanding are the stability of these times.

At some point the picture snaps into darkness, we can clearly hear the crew yelling at the lighting technicians, the director lets this into the final cut because everyman must learn to power his own energy and those that generate enough to distribute will be enthroned. When light is restored, the actors get back into character but we notice that the petri dishes have been emptied out, again.

As the movie ends, we see the cat, the dogs and the ripple rise, we hear the trumpets and the alarms, there’s fresh fear for the uninformed, but the farmers stand ready with the sickle in their hands, now fully accustomed to the shifts and movements, they are ready for the harvest in 2024.

This is most likely the most confusing movie/year review you have ever read; it almost never arrives at the point or give any meaningful indication of the plot. I’m a good movie reviewer, I assure you but this particular year/movie is so fast-paced it puts you in a spin and sets you on a collision course to ensure the only tenets that matter to you at the end of the movie are balance and positioning, not the plot holes. Hence, viewer discretion is advised.

2023 is the movie you may not know you were casted in till you are paid the wages of the bystanders and for scribes that write their reviews after the premiere, please let your audience know that while retrospect might be the comfort of the past, guided intuition is the compass for the future.

He that has an eye, Please See 2023.

John Oluwatobi.?

*Picture Credit – Brett Jordan