Good but bad at the same time

They did looked dusted and heated, and Isabelle's hair was anything but tidy (dry, frizzed-out, haphazardly pulled back and knotted), and she did look flushed at times.

Perspiration wasn't visible, and their clothes and hands and arms and necks weren't covered with dirt and grime, because their bodies were used to the physical labour and the primitive ruggedness of the landscape and sweltering climate.

These people were born of the land and worked the land their whole lives, they're physically part of the land, their bodies naturally designed to be undisturbed by the sweltering heat and heavy perspiration and by the magnetic stickiness of dirt and grime. They weren't messy or grimy after working because the land allowed their bodies to adapt.

I also perceive the lack of griminess and sweat and messy untidiness to mean the land welcomed them and accepted their bodies instead of punishing their bodies, because it fits in with Maria's belief that as she accepts the African people and African land without question, and as she feels perfectly comfortable and at home in her surroundings, so too do the African people and African land accept her without question, so too are the people and land perfectly comfortable with her.

Maria virtually walking barefoot, Maria virtually walking naked (dress blending into her skin, into the dusty land), Maria a natural part of the landscape, her body and mind physically accepting landscape and climate, her body and mind completely unperturbed by it.

The African landscape accepting the bodies of its inhabitants, the landscape and climate redesigning and molding their bodies to withstand the physical and mental punishment of strenuous labour in severe heat, I believe that was a clever device the director used emphasize the issue of how the land accepted Maria and Maria's body was in tune to the land, yet the inhabitants of the land did not not accept her and were not atuned to her.

Sorry for the ramble but oh well.

Although I respected and admired this woman's determination and tenacity, it's fairly obvious that she was either on a death/suicide trip, completely insane and in a "state of total denial" regarding the events unfolding around her, or she was just plain old "Darwin Award" material, and didn't have the common sense to move aside when a steam locomotive was about to hit her at 90mph.

I can respect white Europeans making a stake in "hostile territory" thousands of miles away from Europe, and then having been born there over several generations, working the land until their fingers bled, etc, gives them a strange sense of "native-ness," belonging, and entitlement.

However these white "relics" are living remnants of a vicious colonial system from way back when, that was extremely abusive to the native populations, and I do not have much sympathy for them in getting kicked out. Of course, I do not condone violence against any human, but I think it's only logical the natives want them gone due to past resentments and such.

Good film, but there are some gaping logical inconsistencies that only those three things I mentioned might help explain.