Review of Desert Flower (2009) by Walter M — 18 Mar 2011

I was interested in seeing this movie for a long time, for some strange reason, and wasn't left disappointed.

While the pace of the film is a bit uneven and slightly hard to follow at places, especially near the beginning when time has clearly passed between the previous and the next scene, altogether the shifts in time were quite well balanced.

A story of Waris Dirie (I am interested to read the book this movie is based on), a Somali girl who runs away from an arranged marriage at the age of 13. Whether it was the will of Allah, fate, or just pure luck that she actually made it to Mogadishu from her village, that she found her way to London, and was later discovered and made into a super model, it doesn't remove the fact that her story is intriguing, sad, heart-wrenching and inspiring.

The movie is sad, a little depressing at times, with random rays of hope. It tells about friendship, discovering a new culture and leaving the beliefs behind, and the need to survive. A brutally real piece that doesn't really have a feel of fantasy about it; they may have made things more dramatic, who knows, but I could imagine all this happening in real life, pretty much.

The topic of female circumcision wasn't the only tearjerker, but it definitely created a turning point for a lot of things. To see Waris come to realize her world isn't the only one was painful. As a woman, I'm not sure if my response to that was simply caused by my gender, but it definitely helped.

Altogether, the story doesn't leave much to desire when you manage to follow the events on screen. The music was extremely beautiful from start to finish.

Give this one a chance. It may surprise you.