We seek, conquer and then...?

“Love is not blind – it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.” – Julins Gordon. We human beings often long for love, compassion and mutual comprehension. Many of us have a dream to find the love of our lives and live happily ever after as Cinderella did. We seek to spend our lifetime loving each other, just like it is shown in movies. In fact the movie we saw in class, last Thursday, The White Masai (Originally: Die Weisse Massai ), directed by Hermine Huntgeburth, which is actually based on a true story, made me aspire for true love.

Talking on behalf of all my senses, the movie was above everything else, a wake up call for me. A Swiss on a vacation in Nigeria with her boyfriend instantly falls in love with a Masai warrior. The Swiss, Carola, leaves her boyfriend, abandons her life back at home, follows her heart and probably also her brain and decides to set in a search for true love to find the Masai warrior, Lemalian. Back to the first sentence in this paragraph: my wake up call: The spontaneity that Carola shows is daring, fearless and risky. How many of us today would leave everything we possess for someone we fall in love on first sight on a vacation? My last article was about travelling differently and being spontaneous. Her behaviour was my wake up call to follow my own words.

According to me, the director has shown many contrasts in culture, traditions, lifestyles, beliefs and feelings when Carola and Lemalian meet. The movie is actually based upon Carola´s decision and her life with Leliman, resulting further in how the cultural differences and the ultimate cultural crash moulds her personality once again. After watching the movie, I googled up the author, Corinne Hoffmann , and she still lives today.

The cultural crash was predominantly focused on the way of loving each other equally as husband and wife. One of Carola´s first biggest shocks was the way the Masai had sexual intercourse and how women were treated while having sex. The director also levitates other cultural topics such as female circumcision, gender discrimination, social norms and values and respect. Although I wasn’t shocked by the earlier mentioned topics that led to several arguments and fights between the couple, I was certainly surprised by the sacrifice they committed. They both changed and were willing to change for each other in several ways, such as Leliman willing to change his way of making love to “the European way”, Carola getting used to the life as the wife of a Masai Warrior and settling down in a hut probably not bigger than 30 km². They both wanted to preserve true love.

Though the movie being very comprehensive about the story, I felt it could be longer. I wanted to know for example how Carola´s daily life was in the hut. I wanted to know more about Carola´s communication skills, and how they developed. I found the movies focusing mostly on Carola and Leliman and not much on their relationship with the others in the society.

Through life awakening music, light, scenes, sets, and editing the director made me live in the movie for the 131 minutes the movies lasted. Many lines were drawn for the audience to understand, and some were left to open discussion, such as why does Carola act the way she does in the end? And what is it in the first place that makes Leliman sacrifice his pride? Will true love be kept and preserved like a new born for ever, or…