Le Miel d'Harar

I will admit, as an Ethiopian, I braced myself for offense when I sat down to watch this film. It is a bit unusual to see a white woman portray the Ethiopian refugee experience, but in all honesty, Dakota gives a sincere and worthy portrayal with a character that gives careful attention to her privileges. The circumstances surrounding the story and the other Ethiopian women are rich and authentic. You can see by her response to casting criticism, she does understand the heart of the story she is telling. It brought back memories for my parents as they watched so it was a worthy effort. Particularly her attempts at the Amharic language. 👌🏽 If your on the fence, I do reccomend giving it a look. I'm glad I did.

I watched this movie straight after having finished the book - which was my mistake. I guess I didn't see the movie for what it was on it's own. I thought Dakota was amazing and the actress who played Amina stole my heart. Yahya Abdul Mateen was a good choice for Aziz I believe. The problem was with fast pacing, and the fact that some scenes just don't make sense unless you read the book and understand it more. Characters were not as fleshed out as was needed to truly sympathise with them and understand why they say the things they do. Of course in just under 2 hours we can't expect the film to show everything that happens in the book, but some pivotal points like how Lily and Aziz eventually got together was skimmed over in the film for me. Overall it managed to find it's way through the plot but failed to fully capture the soul within sweetness in the belly,

Seems some viewers have a completely wrong impression of the story here and what it is trying to show. It depicts a very light-skinned British girl of 7 being left behind by her parents in Ethiopia, then raised by a group of Muslims. As she grew up, and studied the Koran, to her the skin color was not important. But when she as a young adult eventually is forced to leave Ethiopia for safety during the 1974 Ethiopian overthrow of dictator Haile Selassie and his government, and arrived in Great Britain, she soon found that she indeed received special treatment, compared to the native dark-skinned Ethiopians.

Add to that she had developed a relationship with an Ethiopian doctor who didn't escape when she did and a large part of the story here is her search for him and wondering if he survived.

Based on a novel, my wife and I enjoyed it at home on DVD from our public library. Good movie because it treats a subject that seems to be happening somewhere in the world at any given time, people forced to leave their country because of turmoil and lack of safety. Dakota Fanning is good in the lead role.

Definitely worth watching!! I rate this a 7 and wonder if I rated high enough.

I almost didn't watch it because of the ridiculously low rating. It's a nice, authentic, non-hollywood movie. No CGI, or dreadfully ludicrous, unrealistic fight sequences. It felt honest and authentic, like a good indie film should be.