IMDb user comments for
Si le vent soulève les sables (2006)

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Must See!, 8 January 2007

Author: efcarter from United States

I saw this film at the Palm Springs Film Festival and was fortunate to also participate in the Q&A session after the film with the director. This was a very good film about the struggles within the small villages in Africa that are lacking access to water. The film deliberately does not state a particular region of Africa because the story can be applied to almost anywhere across the continent. The film was really well casted and the cinematography was well depicted. I especially enjoyed the musical soundtrack. Bring a bottle of water with you to see this film because it will make you thirsty! We forget how difficult life is for others in regions of the world we are not very familiar with and I love these types of movies that remind us to remember others and their struggles. It is heartbreaking to think hundreds of thousands of people are struggling as those in this movie. The story focuses on one family in a village that decides to travel across a desert in search of water wells. There are no roads and no one can be trusted so their decision is life threatening but must be done because of the lack of water in their own village. The family crosses the desert and suffers tragedies along the way that bring you emotionally into the movie. There was one scene we had to laugh about, in the desert when the father and daughter were resting and leaning on the camel with a little make shift shade cover; they were on the wrong side of the camel because the other side had a LOT more shade then the sunny side they were on. Strongly recommend everyone to support films like this one, it's so important for us to help our neighbors and not just the ones with resources we want.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Pluses and minuses (see below), 4 April 2007

Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

POSITIVE REVIEW: Adapted from Marc Durin-Valois' prize-winning novel Chamelle by Belgian director Hänsel, this is the beautiful and moving saga of a little family somewhere in Africa forced to leave home and struggle eastward across the desert with their livestock in search of water. Along the way they endure great loss, danger, cruelty, and heartbreak. This film dramatizes many of the demographic and human problems that face the African continent: drought, revolution, lawlessness, poverty. Hänsel's powerful visual storytelling makes all these things real to us, while bringing alive the drama of human beings. Images are striking, and so are the people, and all the actors are fine, particularly the father Rahn e played by Isaka Sawadogo and his little daughter Shasha played by Asma Nouman Aden. Music is used deftly and economically. This is committed narrative film-making at its best. It brings home major issues but never seems preachy or doctrinaire. At the end, what remains of the family winds up in a UN camp. "This is my Pouzzi," says Sasha, using her pet name for her father. "He looks sad because he has lost his camel." The viewer will remember a series of striking, pathetic tableaux. A heartrending and vividly told tale.

NEGATIVE REVIEW: Shot in Djibouti, Hänsel's film attempts to be universal by being unspecific in locale and by casting the dialogue by all and sundry entirely in rather academic French. Everything is generic and sanitized. If the family is desperately short of water, how come they have full wardrobes of immaculately clean clothes and are perfectly clean themselves? At the outset Rahne meets another man who says they should travel together because it's safer that way. "Yes," Rahne says, "we will travel together. We will leave before dawn to take advantage of the coolness." It's stilted elementary primer language. Even religious phrases that sound Muslim, like "God wishes it so," are said in French, when likely they would be said in Arabic. A bunch of wild looking outlaws speak the same academic French. An online viewer wrote that this is "a romanticized film made by a middle aged western woman aimed at...middle aged western women" and added, "naturally in the end the main characters get saved by white people from the West." And this is true. Hänsel uses the authentic setting and real-looking African actors to make us naive westerners believe that we're watching something real, but it's a downbeat fairy tale, none of which is true to a specific and coherent whole. Sawadogo, by the way, has lived in Norway for the last fifteen years.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
This Movie really touches the way you think..., 5 February 2007

Author: mpnetten from Netherlands

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I've seen this movie at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. It was very very touching. A story about an African family that must undertake a journey to find water. The dangers underway are not in favor of these people. I don't want to say more, you have to see the rest for yourself!!

I makes you realize that we can make a fuss about things that do not matter (too much). I mean in our, rich, world, the problems and challenges we encounter can be very real and frustrating. And although these problems can be very real, we also tend to make problems out of nothing: The very specific kind of dessert wasn't available in the supermarket, etc.

This movie's a movie that you wouldn't watch with a bag of popcorn, but still I'd like to recommend it to get a more balanced view of the world we all live in.

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3 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
"Artistic" pulp, 5 February 2007

Author: emtec666 from Netherlands

I saw this at the 36th International Film Festival of Rotterdam.

It's a romanticized film made by a middle aged western woman aimed at...middle aged western women. It's filled with clichés about the way (rich) people from the West view Africa. The actors speak French: yeah like well clothed, French speaking Africans have to cross a desert to find water. Add in war, child soldiers etc. and an "artistic" soundtrack and the target audience will love it. Naturally in the end the main characters get saved by white people from the West. The actors acted unnatural but did a good job sticking to the silly script. Rated this a 2 because the animals acted well. For the rest it's "artistic" pulp.

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