The film "Desert Flower" is based on the autobiographical bestseller of Somali-born black model Wallis Diri.
Wallis Diri shoots Chanel commercials
Diri, 43, was once famous for filming Chanel commercials.
Elected as one of Forbes' 30 global female role models.
Known as the "African feminist fighter".
In 1996, she launched a campaign against FGM.
Most of the film is real, but because of the reality, people feel more shocked and heartbroken, and every frame of the shot is shouting to the world: "Look! There are still people who live like this! ”
Movie posters
Wallis (Leah Corbed) was born in the desert of Somalia and lived a nomadic life with her mother, where life is desolate but also simple and happy.
Play with lambs
Herd sheep in your hometown
At the age of three, Wallis was femalely circumcised according to Somali custom.
When he was twelve, his father wanted to marry Wallis to a sixty-year-old old man in order to get five camels. On the eve of her marriage, Wallis, with her mother's acquiescence, defected to her grandmother in Mogadishu.
The road to Mogadishu was a long hike in the desert, and on the way through the desert, her feet were worn out, she had no water to drink but to chew leaves and roots, and she slept alone in the wind and sand at night, almost dying in the desert.
Eat leaves in the desert
She finally arrived in Mogadishu, where she was offered the opportunity to work as a maid for the aunt of the wife of the then Somali ambassador to Britain, where she was not allowed to watch TELEVISION with others, so she had to hide outside the door and listen.
It was also here that she saw tap water for the first time, and she was curious and incredulous, because in the desert water is very precious, and she uses water carefully every time she does housework.
Because of her exclusion, even if she was in the ambassador's home, she did not speak fluent English. Shortly after arriving in Britain, war broke out in Somalia, the old government was overthrown, and Wallis took advantage of the chaos to flee the embassy again and wander the streets of Britain.
On the street, Wallis meets Marilyn (Sally Hawkins), a dancer who lives in a hotel because she was not accepted into the Royal Dance Company, finds Wallis hiding in the toilet, and kindly takes her in when she is about to be kicked out, helping her find a job cleaning at a fast-food restaurant.
At work, a famous photographer told Wallis that she was very beautiful, and if she wanted, he could take pictures of her and gave her his business card, but Wallis did not take it to heart, because in her impression family kept telling her that it was not good to take pictures.
By chance, Wallis found Marilyn making out with a strange man in her room and angrily said to Marilyn, "Only a woman who has been circumcised is a good woman." ”
Marilyn didn't understand what that meant.
Wallis explains: "Shouldn't it be that one's innocence can only be guaranteed by circumcision, and only when it comes to the wedding night when it is opened by the husband?" ”
Marilyn still did not understand the meaning of circumcision.
Wallis asked again, "Haven't you been circumcised?" ”
Marilyn seemed to understand something and asked, "What have you been done?" ”
Wallis couldn't say clearly, so she pulled her clothes off and showed them to Marilyn.
Marilyn asked in shock, "When was this?" ”
Wallis said: "When I was three years old, they circumcised me, and my sisters and sisters all had to do this, and there would be a special circumcisionist to do it. ”
Marilyn quickly denied: "No, not every woman has to be like this. ”
Shortly after this incident, Wallis was taken to the local hospital for stomach pain.
The doctor discovered that Wallis had been circumcised and told her that he could not restore it, but could help her relieve the pain, and in order to better communicate (Wallis's English is not good, the doctor does not speak Somali) the doctor found a male nurse of Somali nationality who was on duty that day.
However, the doctor wanted to tell Wallace that her circumcision was too tightly stitched and needed to be operated on immediately.
The Somali male nurse told Wallis in Somali: "Aren't you ashamed?" You've been looked at by white men, and our traditions have nothing to do with outsiders. ”
The doctor also said that she must have been tortured all these years, that she should not have endured so long, and told her, don't worry, we will definitely cure her.
But the male nurse said, "If you want to change, you are betraying your parents and your nation, which is really shameful." Have you asked your mother's opinion? ”
Wallis hesitated.
But when she walked the streets of England and thought about what she had endured, she finally bravely decided to go for surgery.
The operation was a success, and after the operation, she went to the photographer and told him, "I'm interested in making my life better." ”
Her beauty was discovered by the world, and she went from the desert to the stage of the world.
Wallis catwalk
But when she was interviewed after she became famous, the reporter asked: "Is the day she was discovered a day that changed her destiny?" ”
Wallis said: "What changed my fate was one day when I was three years old, I was given some extra food, and then my mother took me to a stone hill, held me and sat on a large rock, clutched my legs tightly to prevent me from moving, the circumcisionist cut off part of my sexual organs, sutured the wound, leaving only the size of a matchhead, without any disinfection measures, the wound infected me with a high fever, almost died, and when I grew up to go to that stone hill, there was nothing, probably eaten by birds." ”
The circumcision scene in the film
The reporter could not cry when he heard this.
Because of this, more people in the world know about circumcision, and she speaks up for these women, and also for her sisters and sisters who died because of circumcision.
In fact, there are circumcisions in many parts of the world, but Wallis is the first woman to dare to stand up and discuss publicly, and the United Nations has appointed Wallis as a special ambassador to resist this atrocity. Since then, many countries have banned this practice, but many women are still circumcised every year, so the rebellion continues.
The film uses real artistic techniques, vast visual backgrounds and delicate emotional portrayals between characters to express the heroine's shock and entanglement from ignorant acceptance of "customs" to knowing the truth and final resistance. Her awakening is by no means small and meaningless, but a beam of fire that burns from civilization to backwardness, and she hopes that women can understand: there are some sufferings that we should not have endured!
Almost everyone who watches the movie will be shocked by one of these cruel customs, and that is circumcision.
What is circumcision?
Female circumcision is a ritual that is mostly performed between the ages of three and eight, with the aim of removing part of the sexual organs to relieve them of sexual pleasure and to ensure that girls remain virgins before marriage and are faithful to their husbands even after marriage.
It is estimated that approximately 130 million women worldwide are circumcised and grow at a rate of 2 million per year. In three countries, including Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Gambia, almost all women must undergo the harrowing procedure, and in Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines, the number of people who have been circumcised is high.
One of the purposes of circumcision is to provide men with a reliable method of "virginity testing". He can tell if a bride is a virgin by examining her genitals. During intercourse, the woman's wound is torn, then healed, and then torn again, and so on and When a husband goes out to graze or work, this circumcision function can also be used to test the wife's faithfulness when he returns home.