The Project Basis

My very first blog post. Gulp*. Well here goes nothing...

Hello all,

Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Mike Oltersdorf, and you have stumbled across my academically-driven blog. I know that blogs have a tendency to be associated with attention-seeking 30-somethings who thought that having a Facebook was too "mainstream," and believe me, this is the type of association I would like to avoid. In fact, I'll come clean right now. The only reason why my blog, "The Locales of Africa," was created is because it fulfills a certain criteria. I am required open up a review of the movie, "The Constant Gardener," to an audience in order to share my observation in a critical manner. For those who have not seen the movie, I encourage you watch it. To quickly sum it up and not do the movie any justice at all, it is a movie that follows an English diplomat stationed in Kenya who follows the trail of his wife's mysterious death, and by doing so, he uncovers a conspiracy that exists between the pharmaceutical companies, the British government, and the Kenyan government. Aside from the compelling love story and the political intrigue of the conspiracy, the movie tries to capture the essence of Africa.

Now wait a minute Mike... How can a movie possibly, without coming off patronizing or flat out wrong, try to encompass Africa? There are certain things that may seem to contradict this view. For example, the main characters are all white - with the exception of the companion doctor who is black (but also Belgian) - and hardly represent the entire African experience. However, when one considers that the director Fernando Meirelles needs to make concessions to a primarily western audience in order to tell a more fundamental story of corporate ethics and how they play out in third world countries. So maybe his characters don't necessarily reflect a majority of Africans, but in today's age its hard to say any one group of people defines a geographic area. The cast of characters may all be white, but that is not to say they aren't African and don't care about its struggles. 

So if the plot line is primarily influenced by western culture and driven by faces that represent this culture, how can this movie paint any picture of Africa? This question can be answered when one considers the various locations the film takes us to. Rather than catering to the west's expectation of Kenya's wild grasslands filled with the cast of Disney's "The Lion King," Meirelles takes us to many real locations of modern Africa. The sprawling metropolis of Nairobi is pictured to be a city of bustling activity, the slums outside of it are designated for the downtrodden (and the location of the pharmaceutical companies), and  the tribal villages where the threat of bandit raids are very real.

There are many more locations in the movie I will analyze in addition to the ones I just listed, but it will have to be saved for another post. I encourage comments if you stumble across this blog and find yourself interested. I will try to post something informative everyday.

-Mike