BOOK AND FILM COMPARISON “The desert flower”

Before watching the movie

I've maid up a pretty clear picture of how the main character would look like and how she would be. I know that she's black and short haired and I think she have a living face and a glint in her eyes. And since she's a model I think she's beautiful and probably very skinny because that's a preference in the modeling industry. And even when she gets famous I don't think she'll wear very fancy clothes or live in extraordinary luxury, I think she'll be rather primitive. I think she'll be funny without trying and rather corny in some situation. I hope another female model has the part as Waris rather than an actress because this movie is not going to be about the acting but about portray a persons extraordinary life story.

I don't think it will be easy to make a movie out of a life story like this and I'm afraid they'll change and ad stuffs to make it more exciting. And I wonder how will they be able to picture Waris feelings when she first arrived in London with only one shoe because it's way much easier to write about feelings in first person point of view than trying to make another person express someone else feeling on film. This is a quote from the book about Waris arrival to London and sees snow for the first time from p 142 “When I got out of the cab outside my uncles house there was a strange ice cold white rain dripping down from heaven like nothing I've ever seen before”.

I also wonder if they are filming in the desert I sure hope so because that's an important part of Waris journey. It don't think a camera can see the desert with Waris eyes so it could easily became pale in the reality. Because Waris is raised in the desert and speaks of it with such adore and she seems to adore and understand the desert this is an example of that “during the ritual of our evening chores, the great curve of the desert sky darkens, and a bright planet appears, a signal that it's time to herd the sheep back in their pen”(p.16).

“I saw many Moslem women with scarves draped over their heads, the dark veils covering their faces altogether. I stared at them, wondering how they could find their way. The city sparkled in the bright sun and all the colors seemed electrified”: This quote is from when Waris after fleeing across the desert finally found Mogadishu. You can almost touch the intensity from this moment and if I close my eyes I can almost imagine how all the beautiful buildings and the women must have looked like in her eyes. It's a very colorful moment. If they try to recapture this on film I think some of the magic will be destroyed.

The plot in the film:

Waris a young nomadic girl escapes from her destiny in the desert and goes to America to find a better life but on her journey she suffers from many recessions that she never thought she would have needed to go through. But finally she reaches success and happiness.

The story about Waris is very naked and plain so to get it interesting in a movie they will unfortunately have to do some changes and add some facts to make it more exciting for the viewer, because even if a picture says more than a 1000 words you can't express the same amount of feelings on the silver screen.
My absolute favorite scene from the book is when Waris is going to get her first job as a model and they asks her to take of her top. And since she's new to the western way of being she gets very upset and runs from the agency in disgrace thinking they're perverted bastards.

I think the film will be a great success because it's such an extraordinary story about a girl who did it all by her self.

After watching the movie

Title: The Desert flower
Author: Waris Dirie and Cathleen Miller
Published: 22/5 1997
Pages: 226

The early parts of the book takes place in the Somalian desert in the late 60-ties and the latter parts in mostly London 70-80-ties but since she travels the world it's hard to say.

The plot is the same that I said in the earlier parts: “A nomadic girl who's fled to the UK and suffers from the cultural changes but tries to make her way in modeling”.

The film- Desert flower (2009)
Director and producer: Peter Herrmann and Benjamin Herrmann
Waris is played by the Ethiopian supermodel Liya Kebede.
Even though it's a new movie from the 2000 century they make it realistic to Waris history so I would say it's sometime between 1965-1990.

COMPARISION

As I believe they didn't really manage to capture Waris the way I hoped they did but Liya does a wonderful job playing Waris. She looked just like I'd imagined her to look. One thing I'm quite sad about is how they made up a silly story about how she met her husband and kind of wrapped the movie around her love for him. In the book he had such a small part so I was disappointed they made it that big in the movie. But my favorite part that I described before in the agency doing her first job was absolutely fantastic and very fun to watch, for that specific part the movie version was better. They added a friend to her in the film and kind of did a mix friend of two friends in the book, her first roommate and her model friend (Nigels sister). The film has also left out a lot of her family as she describes it in the book. Something I wouldn't have done if I the decision was mine.

I understand that you have to do these kinds of adjustment to adapt the book too the screen but sincerely I think it's sad too watch a movie after you've read the book because you'll always get disappointed. But after all there's nothing I as a producer would have done different because if I hadn't read the book I'd love the movie. The movie is never as good as the film for a book lover as me. So last I would like to say that it was a great movie but an extraordinary book.