Movie Review - The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

I haven't seen too many films about Africa that are told from the perspective of an African or by an African or black filmmaker. I haven't gotten into the whole Nollywood genre, which like Bollywood is a foreign version of Hollywood. Nollywood is the Hollywood of Africa, specifically of Nigeria. When it comes to films about Africa by black people, the one recently to count would have to be Black Panther (2018). That film was about a comic book, super-hero who worried that technology from within would make it out to the world and be used as weapons. This film is about a young man who could be considered a super-hero who doesn't worry about technology getting out of his country for destructive purposes but instead his concern is getting technology into his country for constructive purposes.

Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave and Kinky Boots) stars as Trywell Kamkwamba, a farmer living in Malawi in 2001. He's married with three children. His eldest is his daughter who's probably 17 or 18. His middle child is 13 and his third is just a baby under 1 year-old. They live in a small, one-story home without a lot of electricity or plumbing. The only electricity they get comes from batteries, which power things like portable radios. Trywell's only means of transportation is his bicycle on which he depends. He has several acres of land that he has to farm, as it's the only income and principal source of food for his family. He doesn't have much help. He pretty much has to do it all and do it all by hand.

Trywell lives in a tiny village. The leader of the village is a man called Chief Wimbe, played by Joseph Marcell (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). Chief Wimbe meets with Trywell and the other farmers of the village to talk about the issues facing them all. There are certain socioeconomic, political and even environmental issues that are affecting all of their livelihoods.

Written and directed by Ejiofor himself, based on a book by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, the movie deals with those political issues like the corruption within the government. The details of which aren't totally laid out but what's clear is that the government can't or won't help small villages being affected by a famine and food crisis in the country. The focus is mainly on the environmental issues. The people really seem to be at the whim of mother nature, either in drought, which doesn't allow for farmers to plant or grow crops, or in flooding, which destroys plants and crops.

The events of this film precede the release of the Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth (2006), but it's clear that what's happening environmentally is the result of global warming and climate change. Malawi is a third-world country with one of  the poorest economies on Earth. It's not contributing to climate change but it is a victim of it. Global warming and climate change are never mentioned. Those words are never uttered, but this film is still a prime example of the phenomenon's effects. The film never utters those words because ultimately there's nothing Trywell's family or anyone in the village can do about the larger issue. For them, it's just about surviving the year or two.

The film does seem to follow Trywell's family over the course of a year or so. The film is divided into sections. Each section corresponds to a specific time in the year where a farmer has to either sow or harvest or wait. We then see each of the family members, aside from the baby, do what they can to make it through this tough period. It's as much a survival film as anything else. However, the majority of the film follows Trywell's middle child, as he does what he can to help the family, survive and simply bear witness. Instead of doing the traditional things, his solution lies in education and the books at school. In that way, this film is like Queen of Katwe (2016).

Maxwell Simba in his feature debut co-stars as William Kamkwamba, the 13-year-old boy who already seems electrically and mechanically minded. He goes with his best friend and pet dog to the junkyard to hunt for scraps. He and his friends like to listen to sporting events, games and other things on the radio, but they can't afford to buy batteries. He wants to go to school, but his family can't afford to pay the school fees. He becomes obsessed with getting into the school's library because he wants to learn how to make a dynamo or a simple generator to power his friend's radio and possibly other things.

Lily Banda plays Annie Kamkwamba, the older sister to William. She is secretly dating William's teacher, a science tutor named Mike Kachigunda, played by Lemogang Tsipa. Neither of them feel as strongly about the village and farming as everyone else. They perhaps want to pursue other things. They discuss whether or not they should leave. Annie doesn't want to leave her family who is more beholden to their farm land. Some also don't have the resources to relocate. What little ties to this place is all they have, so Annie struggles with her decision but at the same time is frustrated with her family and station in life.

Aïssa Maïga also co-stars as Agnes Kamkwamba, the mother to William and Annie, as well as the wife to Trywell. She's the glue that's holding everyone together. She just could be a typical wife, but Maïga's performance is so incredible, so strong, so vulnerable and at times so raw. She has really fantastic scenes opposite Banda and Ejiofor, which would automatically make her someone I'd consider for next year's Oscars.

Simba also gives a very good performance for his debut. He has a lot of potential as young black actors such as Abraham Attah from Beasts of No Nation (2015) or Alex Hibbert and Ashton Sanders from Moonlight (2016). Unlike those aforementioned films though, this film has a more direct message of the power of education and knowledge, and how we shouldn't be afraid or eschew technology, especially that of green technology.

Rated TV-PG.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 53 mins.

Available on Netflix.