Biyi Bandele, dir. <i>Ẹlẹṣin Ọba: The King’s Horseman</i> . 2022. 96 minutes. Yoruba/English. Nigeria. Netflix. No price reported.

The King's Horseman."Biyi Bandele's les : in ba (2022) illuminates the metaphysical, moral, and ritual foundations of death within Yoruba cosmology, where the passage to the afterlife is not an end but a vital transition to becoming an ancestor.The film's tragic unraveling-caused by colonial interference, moral weakness, and generational discord-underscores how the Yoruba concept of personhood is deeply tied to communal continuity, ancestral honor, and cosmic balance.In the traditional Yoruba worldview, death at an old age is viewed as a transition to the afterlife, a necessary passage to the ancestral world, where a deceased individual becomes a spiritualized body (ar-orun).This transition reaffirms the social, spiritual, and cosmic order that is carved out of a tripartite conception of existence: the unborn, the living, and the dead/ ancestors.Thus, death is not feared but revered when it occurs in line with the natural process of growing old and ritual propriety.Since specific individuals are carved out as sacred bodies, their death is a ritualized process that completes a divine assignment.Therefore, les : in's role as the king's horseman is central to this idea-his ritual suicide is a covenantal act to preserve spiritual continuity between the living and the dead.So, if viewed within the liturgy of cosmic balance, les : in's hesitation to carry out his ritual duty on time because he prioritizes sensual pleasure over his covenantal responsibilities in his last hours is a ritual violation that constitutes not merely a personal failing, but an ontological transgression.His delay creates a spiritual bottleneck, disrupting the king's passage and halting the cycle of ancestral reincarnation.Yoruba cosmology emphasizes timeliness and order, and the delay permits external agents, specifically colonial authorities, to violate the sacred ritual.In metaphysical terms, les : in's failure is not only a breach of duty but a cosmic scandal.Since "rituals in Yoruba tradition are not merely performative acts; they are acts of renewal and cosmic alignment" (Babatunde Lawal, The Gelede Spectacle [University of Washington Press, 1996]).les : in's procrastination, thus, threatens the moral order of his community and reveals the fragile intersection between human agency and divine order.In this instance, les : in's journey to the afterlife and the ritual suicide he must commit underscore the deep spatial understanding of ephemeral bodies and immortal souls.First, his death marks the termination of a chronos time while simultaneously depicting newness in the afterlife.This form of transitioning describes the stages of life that the Yoruba culture recognizes and celebrates.Thus, death is regarded as a temporary state in the continuum of existence,