Desert Flower (2009)

Just perfect...

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

"Desert Flower" is based on the life of Waris Dirie (Liya Kebede) who was born into a Somalian desert tribe, then ran away from an arranged marriage as a young teen and made her way to London, where she became a world-famous supermodel. As a child, she was circumcised, as is the custom in many African countries. An old woman in the desert cut away those parts that could someday allow her to feel sexual pleasure.When Waris was sold as a young teenager to an old man who already had three wives, she simply left one day, walking hundreds of miles across desert and scrub land to seek her grandmother in Mogadishu. Amazingly, she found her — and was hired by an aunt in London to work as a maid. The film cuts between her experiences as a young girl and what happened in London, where she ran away, lived on the streets and were befriended by a ditz shop girl named Marylin (Sally Hawkins).It is while sweeping floors and cleaning slop at a McDonalds that she's spotted by fashion photographer Terry Donaldson (Timoty Spell). Donaldson saw something in the bone structure of the cleaning lady that convinced him to give her his card. Waris was all worried trying to be model, but thankfully Marylin knows her fashion and persuades her, several months later, to pop round and see him. She's soon on her way."Desert Flower" is an important movie, and a great one for all African women to see. Dirie's life-story is inspiring for me, her experiences as young girl are tragic, and her ability to speak out against a custom that has long been hidden is impressive. The film certainly has an important message. The scenes that will remain in the memory long after the film concludes are those dealing with Waris' circumcision, particularly an excruciating sequence in which I watch her three year old face as the procedure is performed. It's an angry, damning indictment of a barbaric process. Which I wish it will stop.

My mother kept insisting that I watch this movie but I avoided it because of the subject matter. Even in the hospital, the week before she died, she asked, "Did you see DESERT FLOWER yet? You will like it." She died last week on the Eve of Easter and last night I decided to watch it before it deleted from my DVR. I was completely enthralled and every scene drew me in moving me to a deep compassion for these mutilated women. The London fashion model scenes were a pleasant comic respite from the atrocities and it was interesting to see how Waris integrated these two worlds. Although the film has some loose ends and flaws, nothing will make you appreciate your life as a free woman until you see this film. At the very least, you might be inspired to never complain about such trivial matters as the economy, not having a boyfriend or husband or how badly you thought you were treated as a child. At the best, you will be inspired to use the fire in your life to help those who suffer needlessly in the world.

When a friend of mine suggested watching "Desert Flower", immediately my thought was of a Romantic Comedy of sorts. It was not thought of as a Drama or a Comedy, nor was it ever thought of as anything like the film that we sat down to view.The story revolves around that of Warris (Liya Kebede) who, from the sandy deserts of Somalia, arrives in England. Mixed with the short mini flashbacks of Warris's life before coming to the UK, they show the eventual story and reasons surrounding her presence. With little left to the imagination for the viewer, Desert Flower leaves nothing short of a very educational story of a Somali woman coping with the taboo subject of female circumcising.As this truly is an autobiographical journey of Warris Dirie, many people will find that much of the film is filled with emphasis on abuse – and that is the term that I would use in all manner of the word and expression – as the depiction of the young woman's life is put through sheer hell. With the help of her friends, however, Marylin and Terry, the journey becomes possibly less raw and more tolerable for living as normal as anyone who has witnessed all that Warris has.Desert Rose is absolutely riveting viewing for those who find their True Stories more appealing than Fiction and Fantasy, of which there is none of that within the scenes of this movie. We believe that maybe "Desert Flower" has broken ground in every possible place concerning the subject matter that it exposes the viewer to, not to mention award winning for the strength, fight and progress in the approach to the United Nations concerning the inhuman suffering that other country women like Warris have and are still going through.Timothy Spall playing his top modelling photography character acts out his parts with excellence, as does the sometimes hard faced Lucinda who is played by Juliet Stevenson. Combining the world of fashion and real life together, the overall and sometimes harrowing parts of a tortured life brings the viewer ever closer to the point where they will shout, cringe or even remark loudly on such treatment that Warris goes through from a young age. If the viewer can get past the point of her Somalia Culture Tradition of young girls, then what they will find is a welcome sigh of relief as to the outcome.DVD Archive Rating: 10/10 (Top marks for a truly great directed factual based film)

This move has a very strong argument and a nice plot, though it is not exactly a biography movie. The way the sequence was constructed works well most of the time, with flashbacks to her childhood in Somalia.However, I see one major and one minor pitfall. The minor one is the unnecessary, and apparently random character of Samuel Jackson, the New York's guy that her met at a disco in London and later take huge effort to meet him in New York.The major pitfall is the unnecessary politicization of some scenes. I have something against movies that "take a stand" or need to explicitly "make a point". This happened twice. One, at her speech at United Nations about her ordeal, she appears very unnatural and what could be the climax of the film is a big let-down with a flurry of clichés about Africa and political correctness (genital mutilation is wrong but I still love my mother and I understood why they do that). Other, when the English caretaker proposes her a convenience fake-marriage under the most lame ever excuse of "my people have done you so much harm so this is the least I can do". Collective guilty at its prime - but only for the English, not for the "pure" Africans who do those mutilations out of tradition or so.