‘I heard there was a secret chord, that David played and it pleased the Lord, you don’t really care for music, do you?’
David! David!! David!!! a man after God’s heart, a man whom God favored, the chosen and the forgiven. I really care about music and every other creative tool that soothes my soul.
So, I listen. I watch. I react and I reflect. When I encountered Bimbo Ademoye’s movie, Broken Halleluyah, it stayed long with me, long enough to have a place in my soul and to recount the countless times I tried to mirror my halleluyah too.
According to the Merriem Webster dictionary, the word “Hallelujah” (also spelled Alleluia) is a transliteration of the Hebrew phrase “הללויה“ (halelu Yah), which means:
“Praise the Lord” or “Praise Yahweh”. “Hallelu” means praise (imperative plural of the Hebrew verb halal — to praise). “Yah” is a shortened form of Yahweh, the sacred name of God in Hebrew scripture. It is often used in religious songs, prayers, and expressions of worship in both Jewish and Christian traditions.
I write to review the film, its themes and form of narrative but I get swayed and subjective because it resonates with many parts of my life. The movie encapsulates the love that grows, faith, solace and solitude we find in God and the many times our stories are written by an author we do not know even if we think we are extremely familiar with the characters, setting and plot twist. More like, we are for sure this is how the narrative should be.
There is a certain kind of heaviness that lingers around when you are doing life by yourself. The one that drifts not apart but into you and can barely move away.
‘Loneliness is tough, oh! it was tough!’
I heard the narrator and I felt that kind of loneliness too.
Many times, we sit in the crowd and yet we are unseen.
Lonely from the loss of our purpose, from the people who do not recognize us, from the family we feel no sense of belonginess.
I have always wanted to grow with a partner. I mean, the Genesis is as important as its Songs of Solomon. I love journeys and beginnings. I admire the activeness and the togetherness we encounter in our youth and the moments of songs we sing in our old age. So, when I see the story of the characters Okwudili and Moroundiya, it gladdens my heart and wish mine stays forever too.
‘This sense of belonging, felt good. I loved it here. The joy in knowing that someone is always happy to see you’.
But it’s beautiful, the way someone shows up and fills the broken places. It warm, the things they say and do to rebuild your sense of living and its also more beautiful they way they walk away without a word. Words they say are powerful and, in the silence, they walk off, you regain a moment to assess your life. I gave up on partnership and commitment but Okwudili taught me. There is a David who dances, plays the lyre and carries the uncommon favor of God.
That, there is also a David, who could sit at the roof top but did not allow his manly desires to watch over another’s woman to consume him.
That, there is a David whose Halleluyah was not outsourced from the beauty and dazzling moonlight of the many Jezebels. Okwudili flew from adultery and I cried
‘This David is different!’.
In that moment in many years, I longed for that partnership, friendship, loyalty and love. That singlehood is a choice that should be optioned as what one truly desires but not out of the unpleasant encountered. In that moment, I needed love too.
If we could have a David who flee away from the sin God hates, then there is a Hannah who loves God and stays drunk in her prayers to him. Diya, I love your heart for God but more so, I love your sincerity in refusing to sing because you did not have a cause to. As humanely as we are, and as spiritual beings as we are divined to be, sometimes, we get lost in reaching for us within ourselves. Diya’s infertility stretches her out. She turns to In Vitro Fertilization. Her body changed. Her soul drained. Her spirit aches. She gives up her love because she feels it is not worth it.
‘Let us go our separate ways to reevaluate our lives. Let me go, I do not have anything to offer’. Diya’s voice was soaked in sorrow – frayed and thin at the edges like an old prayer. Sometimes, we walk way, because we feel that there is no podium to say our halleluyah and in the dry pool of devastation, we crawl down the stage with all hope lost. Oh! she did want to throw it all away! It is not just a shut womb that refuses to open but in quest to find meaning in life, we grieve our peace, purpose, finances, marriages and generational breakthroughs. We pray, we fast, we test the waters and ………we give up. What we barely know is, there is often a plan and time for God to show up and show off when we least expect and allow him to carry our burdens. I wanted to write an in-depth analysis of this film but I couldn’t bring myself to watch it a second time. My heart could not permit. I could feel every word and action. It lived through me.
I broke into a prayer
I broke into tears
I broke into anger
I broke into many things I felt over the years
I broke into having a testimony of peace within my soul
A fulfillment of purpose
A reunion of family
A peaceful family environment
A finance that is stable and every other goodness that my generations to come deserve
Oh! I broke and confessed them all.
Our Halleluyah may be broken, but we will find the rhythm, rhymes, lyrics and voice to sing it again, louder and clearer because we have grown to understand its etymology and its content in every context, we may find ourselves. We will grow to sing and say it to our children and great grandchildren. And in the words of Diya ‘Faith is not just the absence of doubt, but the courage to believe in spite of it. That hope is not a wish, it is a gift from God, the source of hope’. For this I pray, that may we not be burdened by what we cannot carry.
As the Holy the Qur’an, 2:286
States “Our Lord, do not impose blame upon us if we have forgotten or erred. Our Lord, and lay not upon us a burden like that which You laid upon those before us. Our Lord, and burden us not with that which we have no ability to bear. And pardon us; and forgive us; and have mercy upon us. You are our protector, so give us victory over the disbelieving people.”
We hope to hop on words of strength from a dynamic perspective just as madam Samira said to Diya ‘Allah is sufficient for me in the time of my distress’. I love the incorporation of the Islam religion to showcase believe that God is not monolithic, he is universal and it is dependent on how one gets to know him. I have great grand parents of Islamic descent, raised by a Christian family, have explored Hinduism and now I have personally been on a journey to discover my self and purpose through the African traditional religion which believes in the Creator God Nyame Kese, the divinity in libations and the power of our ancestors.
And I pray that may the Creator God hear our prayers as we offer our libations, may they reveal and send messages to us like Diya’s grandmother, may they watch over us and appear at every crucial point of our needs. Most importantly, may they hand to us signs of our victory, direct our path and speak words of peace unto us.
Broken Halleluyah is not just for the screens, it’s an encounter, it’s a ministration and its an answered prayer.
References
Broken Hallelujah. Directed by Great Val Edochie, produced by Grace Onyia & Oyin Adebayo , performances by Bimbo Ademoye, Daniel Etim Effiong, and Eso Dike. YouTube, uploaded by Bimbo Ademoye TV https://youtu.be/modAD9y-9Tw. Accessed 18 Apr. 2025.
Burke, Alexandra, performer. Hallelujah. Written by Leonard Cohen, Syco Music, 2008. YouTube, uploaded by AlexandraBurkeVEVO, 18 Dec. 2009,
The Qur’an. Translated by Sahih International, Quran.com, https://quran.com/2/286. Accessed 18 Apr. 2025.
“Hallelujah.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hallelujah. Accessed 18 Apr. 2025.
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