"God Grew Tired of Us" (Documentary) (2006) - Movie Review

“The Lost Boys” are the group of 27000 boys who fled from the Southern Sudan to escape the killing spree of civil war. They walked for years to cross the border to Ethiopia and when the government toppled there, they walked back to Kakuma, Kenya. In the Kakuma Camp provided by the UN, they have formed a family of their own. The documentary by Christopher Dillon Quinn follows three boys John Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior who in the rescue program are now been placed in United States to have a better life. Ten years they have been with the clan in the most horrible days of their lives. They are setting out for a better tomorrow.

From the 27000, half of them succumbed to the severe environment of the desert and its habitat. And some of them were rampaged further by war. Thanks to the many hard working volunteers that they got the basic education in the camp. They have learned what death is by seeing their family killed and not waking up from the sleep. They have learned hunger from the pain of surviving without food and water for days while laboriously walking for their survival. They have not experienced electricity nor they have encountered any of the today’s regular amenities available to common people in the world. With those they embark to America.

They are sad to leave but they have to leave for doing something good tomorrow. They land in United States and their helper in the US gives a quick tutorial on how to turn on the lights and how the potatoes are ready to eat as chips. From a surrounding of living together with 30-40 people any given time, they are put with four other boys. The boys are placed all over in US. Each are provided an opportunity to work and they work hard. They do three jobs and hope to do their school some day. In their meager living, they send money back to the camp and some to their family they have discovered after seventeen years.

In them everything is lost but there is still the sign of innocence and naiveness of seeing the wide world. The surprise in their face to see the modern amenities taking form in the palm of their hand bring the smiles but they are shocked by the detachment created in the community. I have felt it too. When I travel in India, you can always ask people around who would assist in some form or other. In US too there are people assisting but the difference is though that the widespread nature of the location have totally isolated in knowing one street from another. And more than that is the mistrust which has emerged in the current ambience of flooding of information. We are constantly aware of our surroundings. If some one comes and talk to us kindly the immediate opinion is what he or she has to gain from us. And this is perplexing to the kids who grew up living among their brothers to depend and be depended upon.

“God Grew Tired of Us” is a hopeful but also a sad documentary of these kids finding hard to live in the US and always have a guilty complex of being the fortunate ones to get out of the misery. And they push themselves beyond their body and mind to work consistently to do something about their brothers and the situation in Sudan. In one of the cities, the community has complained that they are threatened by them since they always go in groups. But they have always been in group most of their lives and they feel four is less.

The truth is that in the modern world we are distancing far away from each other emotionally in the complacence that technology brings us closer. Seeing in person is the ultimate communication and I miss that. I guess that is the give and take in the comfort I have got but to these kids they are wondering how it has changed for them. “God Grew Tired of Us” apart from making us aware of the atrocities in the Sudan uncovers the loosing bond and trust in the society of today.