Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival January 25,2019
a film by Chiwetel Ejiofor
Plot (Spoiler Alert)
Taking place in the early 2000s in Kasunga, Malawi, a thirteen year old boy named William Kamkwamba has an idea how to save his family and village from famine (starving). William wants to build a windmill that will pump water so the crops can grow and the people can have food.
Blaine: When you’re in the film business you explore a lot of creative things and you get inspired by people you work with. Chiwetel Ejiofor has been working his way up as an actor, but he also wanted to try out directing too. To be a director you start off with something small, like a short film, because that makes good practice in directing. And the more you do it the more your skills improve. Chiwetel Ejiofor made a couple of short films himself. His first one was “Slapper”, which came out in 2008. A year later, a friend of Chiwetel’s had recommended he read this book that was just published called “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”, a story about William Kamkwamba. Chiwetel fell in love with the story and felt this should be a movie. So as soon as he was done with the book, Chiwetel got started on writing a draft for the script. Chiwetel felt it was important to know more about William’s home country. He wanted the audience to feel as though they were there as they are watching the movie and the best way to do that is to get to know the place. We can explore and learn about things or places we are unfamiliar with through film.
Chiwetel went to meet William Kamkwamba and his family in Malawi, to study how everything works there and get to know the place. Chiwetel was very welcomed in Malawi and he got to explore the whole place. Chiwetel had to expand his visit because there was so much to learn and explore. Chiwetel thought it would be a good idea if the film was shot in the real environment. Chiwetel knew exactly how things should go in making “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” and he could imagine how the film would look through his vision. Chiwetel had discovered he wanted to direct the project too, after exploring so much in Malawi. He felt he needed to be in charge of things because he knew exactly what he wanted. Of course “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” took almost a decade to finally make. The reasons it took so long to make are unknown to me. But I do know Chiwetel stuck with the project during that time.
The people in Malawi speak the Chewa language and Chiwetel felt the film should be spoken in that language because like I said we are getting to know this nationality of people and know how things work in their area. There is a little bit of English in the film.
Chiwetel wasn’t planning to act in “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”. When the project first began for Chiwetel, he was in his early 30s. Chiwetel was too old to play the main character, William Kamkwamba, and at the same time he was too young to play the father, Trywell. The people around Chiwetel thought he wrote the Trywell part for himself. By the time “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” was getting ready to shoot, Chiwetel had reached an age where he looked old enough to be the father of two teenagers. So Chiwetel decided to play the part, now that he was old enough for it. It was going to be challenging for Chiwetel Ejiofor to figure out how he was going to both direct and act at the same time. A lot of other filmmakers have done it, Clint Eastwood, Kenneth Branagh, Bradley Cooper and Jon Favreau, but it was a first time for Chiwetel. It’s a lot of work to think about both your vision and how you are going to perform. Chiwetel was also going to have to follow his own rule, which was learn the Chewa language.
A lot of the casting was done in Malawi. They hired actors who spoke Chewa and they could help teach the language to the other actors, who didn’t speak it at all. Chiwetel wanted to bring more into the film compared to the book. Chiwetel is a very experienced dramatic actor and he brings a lot of emotion into his performances, like “12 Years a Slave” for one. “12 Years a Slave” director Steve McQueen is the best director Chiwetel has worked with and I think working with a hard working director like Steve McQueen is a great learning experience to see how you can be as good of a director as him. Steve gave “12 Years a Slave” everything and got amazing performances from his actors, including Chiwetel. Chiwetel is an emotional actor and as a director he has his actors bring out their emotional sides. Chiwetel was able to get a lot of emotion from his actors.
Dick Pope (Mr. Turner and The Illusionist) was the cinematographer hired to shoot the film and he was faced with the challenge on how he was going to shoot it because for one, they didn’t have a crane to use, which makes you question how they did a shot where the camera is looking down from a high angle. There’s an overhead shot of Chiwetel in the crops during the flood scene. What they did was build scaffolds in order to get those shots.
Chiwetel not only wanted to shoot in Malawi, but William’s house as well. Thing was William’s house had enhanced over the years, after the windmill. So eventually they had to shoot somewhere else, but it wasn’t that far from William’s home. Instead they shot at William’s next door neighbor’s house.
You could see William’s windmill from a clear point of view, but it couldn’t be in any of the shots because the windmill doesn’t exist until the end of the film. So Dick Pope and Chiwetel had to figure out what angles they should shoot without the windmill being in them. Not to mention the shadow.
The Camera equipment had to be transferred from studios that were miles and miles away because Malawi doesn’t have a studio there.
They didn’t use the real windmill for the film because Chiwetel didn’t want to mess with it, fearing an accident could happen. So they built their own windmill. The people who had to build it weren’t sure if they could do it, but Chiwetel said “If William Kamkwamba can build a windmill at the age of thirteen then you guys can do it too.” Chiwetel wished William could have constructed their windmill.
It was a long journey to find the right young actor to play William Kamkwamba when he was thirteen. Casting is always a long process because thousands of people want an acting job and it’s the casting director who has to meet with every single actor auditioning for a part. The casting director had watched this audition tape sent in by a boy named Maxwell Simba. The casting director suggested Chiwetel check it out and Chiwetel was impressed with what he was watching. Chiwetel met with Maxwell to test him out and Chiwetel was amazed how fast Maxwell could work. He was able to follow things fast under the orders Chiwetel gave him. And that’s a boy who doesn’t have much acting experience.
Maxwell was perfect and he was really excited about the project. Like William, Maxwell loves to learn and one of the things Maxwell had to learn was how to speak Chewa. Maxwell is Kenyan and he doesn’t speak much English, so for “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”, Maxwell was going to speak two different languages that are different from his usual language. Maxwell gave his performance everything in “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”.
William loves to learn and experiment. He noticed how you can get electricity through certain objects moving at a fast pace. William would go to a junk yard and put whatever objects he found to good use. He would construct things using those objects. People thought it was silly that William would go looking for junk, but he didn’t let that get to him. William always made good use of his free time, whenever he wasn’t helping his father farm.
There are certain places that work differently from everywhere else. When you’re living in Malawi, college isn’t the only school you have to pay for. A lot of the schools in Malawi cost money. If you don’t get an education in life, then you become a farmer instead. William liked farming, but it wasn’t something he wanted to do for the rest of his life. William wanted to do more in life and put his talents to good use.
William goes to school in the beginning, but because his parents can’t afford to pay for a whole year he can no longer be a student at the school. However, William does think of ways he can still learn. He sneaks his way in and uses the library. William knows his older sister, Annie, and his teacher, Mike, have been seeing each other in secret, so in order to keep things a secret Mike helps William use the library as long as William keeps his mouth shut about those two. The librarian is nice enough to allow William to read the library books and I think it’s because she sees a boy who has passion for knowledge and has a future. But William gets caught and kicked out of school.
William being kicked out of school wasn’t the only problem the Kamkwamba family was having. A drought ruined their crops and the crops are everything because they are what makes food. The Kamkwamba family is having lots of bad luck, along with everyone else in the village. Men invade their home and steal all the Kamkwambas’ food. William’s dog dies, probably from dehydration and it hurts William.
Another thing is William’s sister, Annie, has abandoned the family. Annie’s boyfriend, Mike, who I explained is also William’s teacher, wants her to run away with him, but she didn’t want to do that. She wasn’t sure what life would be like out there for her. But then things were going to hell for the Kamkwamba family and so she decided to just go with it because she could not live like this anymore.
William knows how he can help with the crops. Before getting kicked out of school, William read a book with a windmill on the cover and he wants to make a windmill that will pump up water so that the crops can grow. William is positive he can do it, but in order to achieve this goal of his he needs things that belong to other people. The reason is because this stuff has the parts that could come in handy for his machine. Trywel’s bike is one of them, but Trywel refuses. The bike is very valuable in the village, mainly because it’s the only one there. It’s also been helpful to being the Kamkwamba family’s transportation, sense they don’t have a car. They also wouldn’t be able to afford a new bike. Trywel doesn’t want to sacrifice the bike for something he’s not sure will work. The family is struggling with a lot and they are not having any luck with growing new crops. Trywel doesn’t want to take any risks. He has given up hope and that hurts William.
The looks Maxwell shows on his face when he performs as William show a kid with a broken dream, but that’s just on the outside. Maxwell shows a lot of emotion through his performance. His eyes are all teary and he shows how desperate William is to accomplish his goal. William is a desperate boy and he wants to do good, but it’s hard when people like his father don’t believe it could work.
His mother, Agnes, knows things have really sunk low for the Kamkwamba family, with being robbed, having no luck with the crops and Annie leaving, but she doesn’t think things could get any worse then they already are. Agnes reminds Trywell that she took chances in having a life with him and she chose it out of love. And if Trywell loves William, then he’ll have to show it by supporting him. Trywell has a talk with William and William still believes the windmill could work. So Trywell decides to take a chance. Trywell allows William to use the bike and together William’s friends and family help him build a windmill.
When water comes through that pump, it’s no miracle that this is happening because William predicted it. The miracle is Trywell having a smart and bright boy like William as his son. Everyone won’t have to starve thanks to William and his father could not be more proud to have been wrong. Trywell looks at his son in a different way. He sees how special William is. After bringing hope back and constructing something very unique, William is asked to come back to school, but William isn’t sure if he should go. William believes his family will still need help with things. Trywell realizes that William has to go on his own path because he wants him to succeed.
Trywell won’t hold his son back. William has done an amazing thing and Trywell knows he will do more great things in his life. That is the best kind of support William could ever get from his father and William achieved a lot through the years, like going to college in America.
My rating on “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” is five out of five stars
