![]() ![]() 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. My mother kept insisting that I watch this movie but I avoided it because of the subject matter. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID They have even invented a word for natural: uncircumcised and uncut, which is the barbaric bigotry of some turned into lexical tyranny. Excision, and I will say like all other sexual mutilation, is a crime against humanity, including in the US where 95 per cent of males are circumcised. It is nothing but the survival of an enslaving sexual practice that has to disappear from this earth as fast as possible. A tradition coming from Black Africa that was later integrated by Islam when it arrived, though Islam was careful not to spread the practice in the population that did not have that tradition, particularly the Arabs. They are not able to control their lives and to develop the energies that would transform the whole African continent. Beside the direct death rate, and even the indirect death rate (later when pregnant and wanting to deliver the baby) those who survived are made psychologically inferior and dependent. It is called excision and it is performed at the age of three. The film is dealing with one day in the life of an Africa woman that changed that very life into an ordeal. I will not follow that road which is detailed and marked by exploitation, scarification, mutilation, alienation, rejection, and all other words in that line rhyming with immigration. Grady HarpĪn emotional trip of a woman from the desert of Somalia to the United Nations. ![]() But it is Liya Kebede who fills the screen not only with her beauty but also with a powerful performance of the main character. The entire cast (including Juliet Stevenson, Meera Syal, and Craig Parkinson) is pitch perfect. Directed by Sherry Horman who adapted Dirie's autobiography for the screen with Smita Bhide, the visuals are spectacular and the manner in which the story is related is full of passion and compassion. ![]() She has love interests (Anthony Mackie) but her aim is to gain enough credibility and money to go before the WHO and speak against the mutilation that exists in many countries to this day. She struggles though dreary jobs, eventually hooks up with Marilyn (Sally Hawkins0 who introduces her to the world of fashion via Terry Donaldson (Timothy Spall), learns how to dress and walk in heels and eventually becomes the great model we know us as today. Waris Dirie (Liya Kebede) was born in Somalia and was subjected to FGM and fled across the desert to freedom form the heinous attitude toward women (Waris as a child is beautifully portrayed by Soraya Omar-Scego). In 2003, she was the first woman of color to become the face of Estée Lauder cosmetics. ![]() Liya Kebede stars as Waris Darie and is the perfect choice of an actress to fill this role: she is an International supermodel, actress and philanthropist, born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It may take place in a hospital, but is usually performed, without anesthesia, by a traditional circumciser using a knife, razor, or scissors.' Though that is not the main driver of this story it certainly makes the life of Waris Dirie who wrote this autobiography recognized as someone who overcame insurmountable odds to become one the world's top models and a speaker for women's rights. FGM is typically carried out on girls from a few days old to puberty. DESERT FLOWER is a very powerful film that introduces many viewers to the atrocities of Female Genital Mutilation, defined by the dictionary as 'FGM, also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision, is defined as all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non- medical reasons. ![]()
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