"The Lost Boys of Sudan"

Tonight Brother Laurence and I watched "The Lost Boys of Sudan," a documentary about refugees who had been displaced by the civil war in Sudan in the 80s and relocated throughout the United States. It was showing at UCSB as part of the Santa Barbara Human Rights Film Festival.

The first half of the film details the horrific conditions during the Lost Boys' flight from Sudan and later life in refugee camps in neighboring countries. Thankfully, the filmmakers used Nicole Kidman's narration sparingly, allowing the images of the starving refugees to tell most of the story. The second half of the film needs no narration at all: the Lost Boys themselves tell the story of relocating and acculturating to the United States. The occasional moments of levity (e.g., watching one of the young men lift his shirt to reveal a lean six-pack and lamenting how it was a bad thing because he would rather be fat from food) are balanced by tender "confessionals" by the men about displacement and homesickness. Their eventual adjustment to life in the United States serves as validation of the American Dream, though the filmmakers are careful to attend to the costs of success (e.g., each of the young men note that the pace of life in America exacerbates the loneliness that already comes from uprooting half a world away). In a sense, this film says as much about America as it does the Sudan. And as a meditation on assimilation, this film would be an interesting companion piece to "Spellbound," which is as much about immigrant parenting as it is about spelling bees. "The Lost Boys of Sudan" (and "Spellbound," for that matter) is worth a rental, if you get the chance.