Review of God Grew Tired of Us (2006) by V H — 01 Feb 2007

[color=black]In 1987, civil war broke out in Sudan and an estimated 25,000 boys between the ages of three and thirteen set out on foot across the desert to Ethiopia to escape the violence. Not long after, they were forced to flee again, this time ending up in Kenya. Only about half of the boys survived the entire journey. Those who did wound up in a U.N. refugee camp where they grew into a tight-knit community but received only basic education and had very unpromising futures to look forward to.[/color].

[color=black]In 2001, the U.S. government stepped in and offered to relocate some of these young men, dubbed the "lost boys", to the United States, setting them up in apartments in cities across the country and providing them with some help in assimilating. Those selected for the program were expected to pay the U.S. government back for the cost of their airfares once they'd settled in and found jobs. What a bunch of cheapskates. [/color].

[color=black]After providing a little bit of background about their journey out of Sudan, the film follows three relocated "boys" for a three year period beginning shortly before they leave the refugee camp. The first half of the movie is the best, in part because of the excitement it conveys as the guys embark on this exciting new chapter in their lives but also thanks to the many amusing culture clash scenes.[/color].

[color=black]While still in Kenya, one guy says that he's read about electricity but it sounds so complicated that he doubts he'll be able to use it. Another eats the pat of butter that comes with his airplane meal and complains that it tastes like soap. One of his friends[/color] squeezes a packet of mayonnaise directly into his mouth.

Once settled into their junk-food stocked apartments (potato chips and Pepsi, which one of the guys explains is called "Coca Cola" back home), a local liaison drops by to explain things to them, such as what a refrigerator is, how to turn on and off the lights, and how to use the toilet (similar to a scene in [i]Borat[/i], but with the boys listening with rapt attention rather than acting like heavily-accented smart-asses).

Food proves a bit tricky, even after a guided tour of the grocery store. One of the guys picks up a loaf of bread and asks the store manager what it's made from. Not missing a beat, the manager replies, "It's made from scratch". Back in the apartment, the boys puzzle over a package of hotdogs they find in the freezer and make a sort of gruel out of Ritz crackers which they grind up using the handle of a hammer and then mix with milk.

As amusing as some of these scenes are, after watching one of the guys apply shaving gel as if it were moisturizer as the cameraman silently films him, I started to feel a little discomfited by the fact that the filmmakers never intervene to try to help their often clueless subjects. It's sort of the same feeling I get while watching [i]Meerkat Manor[/i] when the narrator reports that a goshawk is about to swoop down to grab a little lost meerkat pup and he just lets it happen! Must the camera be a silent observer to preserve the integrity of the film or is the real reason that no one ever steps in to help that they think that the accidental misuse of grooming products is funny? (OK, it [i]is [/i]funny, but that's not my point.) If one of the guys was about to stick a fork in a light socket, I wonder if the cameraman would alert him to the potential danger or just keep filming away like they did with poor Blossom and the goshawk.

Once they've become a bit more assimilated, the guys all find menial jobs and eventually enroll in college. Through an agency, two of them are able to track down their families from whom they were separated when they fled Sudan. The pressure to send as much money back home as possible compels them to work multiple jobs and causes one to drop out of school. They miss their families and their friends back in the refugee camp. They bemoan the fact that Americans mostly keep to themselves and that there's not the same sense of fellowship here that they're used to. One guy tells of his shock at seeing a woman crying on the street while dozens of people just walked by, none of them bothering to stop to ask her what was wrong. (He did.).

The guys are eyed with suspicion in their communities. (Two of the featured refugees live in Pittsburgh; the other lives in Syracuse.) They tend to do everything in groups, even run their errands, and the shopkeepers start complaining that the pack of six or seven very tall, dark "lost boys" all shopping at once scares away their other customers. Kids seem genuinely curious about who they are and where they're from but the only grown-up who we see talking to them is a woman who smugly asks one of the guys if he finds that he has "more freedom" now that he's in America. (More freedom! I felt like slapping her!) But he obligingly answers "yes" and she seems quite pleased with this response.

Narrated by Nicole Kidman and with Brad Pitt as one of the executive producers, I'm a little leery that this is actually just a propaganda film promoting the celebrity cause du jour. Despite these suspicions, the film still managed to suck me in and make me empathize with its subjects. But mostly it got me to thinking about how much happier they seemed back in the refugee camp before we whisked them away to the land of opportunity and freedom and Ritz crackers.