Powder

Have you ever been discriminated because you're different from others? I'm talking about you being of a different skin colour, being of a different height, having different values and even worse being a bit smarter than others. Think the answer of the majority of you will be "yes", right? I'm sure that the way the world is today can only lead to people not being accepted by others and so on. Then how does this relate to Powder? Well, Powder is all about that you see and of course much more. If I was to describe the plot briefly, Powder is about a boy who was born from lightning (yeah, literally), became an albino and guess what was hated for that. Of course there is more to this film, but we are coming to that in a minute.

Many would say that this is a classical story of injustice where the main hero is a victim, a martyr and what have you during the whole movie before finally becoming a liberator and saviour. You get this in movies like Green Mile, Forrest Gump , Dancer in the dark (a bit later about that) and though it might work for some, most of these movies are really not the kind of genre that succeeds in grabbing my attention. In fact most of them are quite uninteresting to me. Moreover I think that there are already enough movies of that nature these days and that's sad, really. In the sense that most of them are quite similar and are thought - provoking as they used to be. For example, if we take Benjamin Button which is supposed to be a story of made to grab us and never let us go, ends up being a boring narration of “ageing inversion” which for some reason no one in the movie questions. I mean is it that we see people going into “reverse mode”? But that is another story for another day. Let’s stick with powder for now.

So, moving on with Powder. Think this movie touched due me to the fact that I was experiencing a similar situation in my life at the time I saw it. You see, in the early 90s, the year the movie was released, I was in school in Cameroon and this was probably one of the most discriminatory experiences I have ever had. Being a mulatto in Africa is not that easy, you being called all sorts of names, bullied and discriminated in all sorts of ways. I remember very well the way people used to call me "white boy" in Africa and "Nigga" in Russia. Crazy, right? But true. Then out of the blue comes Powder and portrays a story which is so strikingly similar to what I was experiencing at that time that it made me cry (yeah, I have to admit, this is one of those rare movies I cried at). All the same except for the special powers and super brain Powder has. Would like to tell you more, but guess that this will be spoiling a lot. So, waiting for your feedback hope that you guys will enjoy the movie. Peace, Love and Unity...