Maangamizi The Ancient One Essay

In the film Maangamizi: The Ancient One, I find it difficult to extinguish one universal theme, as there is more than one. Along with multiple themes, there exists symbolism, irony and liminality of space. The themes I made out from watching the movie were, mutual healing and self-discovery and also practicing modern medicine versus folk remedies. Samehe, Asira and Maangamizi are the most important characters and everyone else is somewhat irrelevant because only these three characters’ help with the development of each other.

I believe mutual healing and self-discovery is the much bigger theme because the plot is revolved around looking back at Samehe’s past and Asira’s is learning more about herself. Asira comes back to Tanzania to help out at the clinic and there is some liminality that occurs, it’s not within herself, but with the conflict of other nurses. The other nurses don’t like the fact that she uses western medicine to treat some patients and claims traditional medicine is better. I think that’s a bit ironic considering she is a doctor and is having visions that are somewhat similar to Samehe’s visions and is extremely interested in Samehe’s condition. Asira becomes even more interested in helping Samehe after she has seen some of the drawings because they resemble something very close to what she has seen in her own visions.

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The doll is a symbol of passage to see Maangamizi because without the doll Asira was not able to see Maangamizi. Through Maangamizi Asira learns that Samehe is her sister. Also, Samehe’s mother is able to see Asira with her own eyes. The mother gets her closure by being able to see Asira, who is supposed to be her unborn child, but Maangamizi saved. The scene with The mother and the two sisters is very powerful because they are all brought together and there is peaceful closure among all of