Children of the Mountain

Living in North America, access to hospitals, doctors, and the best medicine is something taken for granted. Children of the Mountain tells the story of a child born in Africa with a cleft lip, his top lip split in half not formed properly.

The mother has to make the decision of what to do with the child, and how to raise it. Her natural instinct is to care and love for it, but she is told by various other people of how to just dispose of him. She also tries hard throughout to find ways to cure him of the cleft lip, and other various illnesses he has.

The movie is clearly indie, and uses non-actors for the characters. Overall they do a fairly good job, though there are times when it's just a bit much. The movie also just keeps dragging the main character through the same dilemmas and by the end it all feels like a bit too much.

I saw the film in French version on Canal Plus (France). I really appreciated the script and the message conveyed. The Director in this film succeeded to describe the classic evolution of people in this situation. Poverty and despair leading these people to seek alternative solutions (usually still vain). A society that mystifies and dramatizes the handicap leading with misinformation. and the State that is totally absent. Indeed these people must live on the hope of seeing a foreign health mission come to hope to see their patient have a care. Well done!