Review: The boy who hardnessed the wind.

In the Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, based on a book by William Kamkwamba, the boy of the
title. It’s 2001 in Malawi, and the Kamkwamba family is struggling to make ends meet, parents
remain focused on their children’s education, despite the financial cost. When their 13 year old
son William is forced to leave school after falling behind on payments, he becomes determined to
help not only his family but a community facing famine.

When adapting a novel with a child protagonist, directors too often resort to creating an overly
childlike film, earnest and sentimental to a fault, any sense of reality failing to seep through. It’s a
conventional film in many ways but one that slowly and effectively builds to a remarkably rousing
climax, displaying an act of overwhelming ingenuity that’s hard to deny.

While the director does pitch the film at a broad audience, he makes a key decision not to force
his characters to always speak English. They oscillate between English and Chichewa, mostly using
the latter, and at a time when too many film-makers are choosing to avoid subtitles, even when
telling fact-based stories from foreign countries, it’s hugely refreshing.

The director constantly shows a society that does not allow children to participate in their
activities, it is with this that the story is gradually developing focused on William, that child who
makes the difference but who will have to go through more than one challenge to to be able to
show his family and people everything that is really worth.

The child protagonist breaks all the schemes, making it start to have children as true protagonists
in the places where they live, taking into account that they are the future, who will give a better
livelihood to future generations.