Movie Review: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is an incredibly inspirational movie based on the memoir by the same name written by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer.

In this article, I hope to explain how watching this movie had motivated me to achieve my educational goals. It helps that the true story, upon which the film is based, is utterly remarkable.

Plot

Born in Kasungu, Malawi, Will Kamkwamba is a young schoolboy who comes from a family of farmers who live in the nearby village of Wimbe. William has a talent for fixing radios for his friends and neighbors and spends his free time looking through the local junkyard for salvageable electronic components. Although he is soon banned from attending school due to his parent's inability to pay his tuition fees, William blackmails his science teacher (who is in a secret relationship with William’s sister) into letting him continue attending his class and have access to the school’s library where he learns about electrical engineering and energy production.

By the mid-2000s, the family’s crops fail due to drought and the resulting famine devastates William’s village, leading to riots over government rationing. William’s family is also robbed of their already meager grain stores. People soon begin abandoning the village, and William’s sister elopes with his former teacher to leave her family “one less mouth to feed”.

Seeking to save his village from the drought, William devises a plan to concept prototype which works successfully, but to build a larger windmill, William requires his father, Try well, to give permission to dismantle the family bicycle for parts, which is the only bicycle in the village and the family’s last major asset. His father believes the exercise futile and destroys the prototype and forces, William, to toil in the fields. After William’s dog dies of starvation and hope seems lost, William’s mother, Agnes, intervenes and urges his father to reconsider.

William and his father reconcile after William buries his dog. With the help of his friends and the few remaining members of the village, they build a full-size wind turbine which leads to a successful crop being sown.

Word of William’s windmill spreads and he is awarded a scholarship to attend school, ultimately receiving a degree from Dartmouth College.

“So many things around you are reusable. Where others see garbage, I see opportunity.”

How this movie had helped me

You rarely come across a movie that inspires you to your core. Everyone has that movie that they go back to rewatch to get inspiration and motivation. For me, it was this movie.

One thing that truly moved me was how difficult it must have been for the main character to look on the positive side when faced with depressing situations. The strength shown by Will Kamkwamba alone inspired me to stop complaining about the mundane problems we face day-to-day.

But one thing that stood for me above all, was the faith and trust his father had in his son. During my Advanced level examination, while I was struggling with barely passing, it was my father who supported me. It is that support that motivated me to study and get to the place I am right now. And I know from personal experience, that support from your parents is what keeps us going.

I hope you watch this movie if you already haven’t. It is truly life-changing.