The motherland family, a movie by John Marshall, that was set to show the challenges of particular communities in Africa, using a concrete example of the South African-Namibian community, the Ju/'hoans.The film represented a 50-year stretch if difficulties and misery. It was prepared for the year 1951 to 2000 (Gordon n.p).this movie was set to narrate and even show the lives of the most marginalized communities in the core of Africa. It was a movie that apparently succeeded in showing the kind of love these communities had for their motherlands. Through the wars that these people had to face so as to take care of their homeland, determination to protect their property was clearly demonstrated. These communities also succeeded in showing the kind of economic activities that they perform. These were majorly through the process of gathering and hunting (Gordon n.p).This movie though can be said to fail in the presentation of the reality that lies behind the community. It is said to be a movie that does not capture the reality of the communities’ lifestyle, but rather the one that presents them as inferior people, only in skin, wearing no clothes.
The treatment if the filmmaker and everyone who was involved in the preparation of the movie can be said to be biased. They only captured a society that was lagging behind in development and even socialization. The information presented was not right because the community had involved itself in various economic activities that would not only bring development the individuals in the commonwealth but rather to the whole society. The community has water projects, farming fields as well as large herds of cattle that they keep for both commercial and even actual consumption.
The film can be said to be insightful in various ways because the community being shot here was found in its early stages of development and even socialization. It was a community that was in constant conflict with its neighbors. It was a community that mostly relied on the activities of hunting and gathering as their way of life. When the white people went there, the people were only afraid of the white men because thought that they would be captured, tortured and even killed. Their interaction with the white and after that thus can be said to be insightful and one that does not capture a society in the stages of transition.
The film can also be told to have cast most of the community stages in the process of development. It has a great historical phenomenon whether society was captured in its usual and natural activities. These were activities such as the gathering and hunting processes, the process of fighting for their rights, in particular for the detainment if their motherland, among others. The movie also had some weaknesses, although not as much as the success it had attained. It had shown a lot of bias towards the communities’ activities. It only wanted to capture the society in the process of transition, but rather caught in its most traditional stages, omitting the successes the community was undergoing.
The movie had a lot of relation towards my personal life, because through the transition that a community goes through, be it economic, social, and political or even history so as to attain its natural state. The movie has a lot of relation to the various activities that our community has gone through. It gives me the reality of a community in the process of transition towards its actualization with the process of economic, social, political as well as historical actualization.
Works Cited
Gordon, Robert. “Discussion of A Kalahari Family,” Documentary Educational Resources. 19th Feb. 2016 (http://www.der.org/films/a-kalahari-family.html).
