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NOTE:
"Nowhere in Africa" is the highly regarded German movie that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for
2002.
MINI MOVIE REVIEW:
"Nowhere in Africa" is an exquisitely filmed movie about a formerly wealthy Jewish émigré family fleeing their
urban German homeland just before the Holocaust. They end up spending the years during World War II on a distant farm in the
hill country of Kenya, thanks to other Jewish émigrés who had preceded them and have agreed to act as their sponsors.
Here the husband has to learn how to farm instead of practice law and his naive and vain wife has to learn how to adjust
to their greatly reduced economic reality as a lowly paid tenant farm family living in a home with few amenities in addition
to their being located many miles from any civilized urban area.
Much of the movie is spent in observing the gradual disintegration of the marriage between the husband, Walter Redlich
(Merab Ninidze) and his pretty young wife, Jettel (Juliane Köhler), as their views on life on a Kenyan farm start out 180
degrees apart from each other and then each move 180 degrees to the opposite so that they still remain diametrically opposed
in opinion.
This movie, partly autobiographical, is also the story of their young daughter, Regina (Lea Kurka, as the young girl,
and Karoline Eckertz as the teenager). Regina quickly adapts to her life in Africa and forms a strong attachment to their
house cook, the very kindly Owuor (Sidede Onyulo).
"Nowhere in Africa" sparkles when we see Kenya through the curious eyes of this innocent and trusting youngster.
She is open to every new experience and quickly falls in love with every aspect of the native Masai culture. This is by far
the richest and most magical part of this movie. When we see what Regina is seeing through her young eyes, this movie soars
into a realm of cinema magic and wonder.
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MOVIE CRITIQUE:
The movie, "Nowhere in Africa," is adapted from a semi biographical novel written by Stefanie Zweig. This movie
shares the problematic fate of many other biographical movies in trying to develop a far too literal cinematic adaptation
from the story instead of paring the biographical elements down to its rich essence, of which there is a lot in this movie.
Please bear in mind that I can't fault anything else about this movie as it is exquisitely filmed and wonderfully acted
by all the parties involved. The cinematography captures the personality of the semi arid hill country of Kenya just below
Mount Kenya, and these wonderful panoramic views add further flavor and nuance to this film.
Special mention must be made of Sidede Onyulo, who plays the role of Owuor, the Masai cook for the Redlichs. His role
is one of such rich intensity and innate human nobility as to make all of us fall in love with this gentle giant of a man.
In essence, he becomes very much the African father, as it were, to the young Regina as he introduces her to the many aspects
of his native life in Kenya that she grows to love with considerable fervency.
The movie could have concentrated on this aspect of the Redlich family life in Kenya, but instead chooses to spend far
too much time concentrating on the frayed relations between Walter and Jettel. Walter has had the foresight to see the Holocaust
approaching in time to get his wife and daughter out Germany, but he finds little joy in his life as a tenant farmer. He is
a lawyer cast adrift as a life physically saved in this foreign land, but also a life mentally wasted as it is a life of the
hands and the land rather than a life of courtroom arguments and summations.
Jettel starts out as a frivolous and vain young lady who naively believes that the problems back home will be over soon
because theirs is the land of Goethe and Schiller. Walter knows better. Jettel reads hope in the few letters from her family
whereas Walter reads between the same lines and sees impending doom. Walter decides to enlist in the British army and he leaves
Jettel to fend for herself as the manager of the farm. Jettel, surprisingly enough, adapts to her new responsibilities and
she gradually comes to love her life on this distant farm.
Sadly enough, Jettel's love for farming happens just as Walter finds a chance to escape it. Now she finds herself once
again in disagreement with the goals of her husband. Jettel is faced with having to make a decision as to whether to stay
with Walter for the sake of the family or, perhaps, cast her lot with the ruggedly handsome Susskind (Matthias Habich), a
fellow farmer who clearly seems to be romantically interested in her.
But this is the kind of marital discord stuff that I can see in many other movies which take place anywhere and everywhere
else in the world. Much of this movie, too much in my opinion, is spent on the unfolding problems of Regina's parents.
While exquisitely filmed and acted, this movie tries to cover too much ground. Focusing the film more on the life of the
daughter would have made this a much better movie as it soars when she is looking at this new world with her wide eyed innocence
and open curiosity.
"Nowhere in Africa" introduced me to a distant, magical land and I wanted to see more of it. I wanted to see
more of the native customs, as fascinating and as different from our own as they are. I wanted to see more of this new life
through the wide eyes of a curious young girl with a zest for living in Kenya that I found to be intoxicatingly refreshing.
In short, I wanted this movie to be more about Regina growing up in Kenya with all the other aspects of the story relegated
to a secondary, supportive role in setting up the thematic elements of the movie. Every time either of the marvelous young
actresses, Kurka and Eckertz in their turn, were on the screen this movie glowed with intensity and I was on a magic cinema
carpet ride through the mind and eyes of a lovely young lady in a far off exotic land. I couldn't have asked for more from
this movie except for more of these scenes. They are truly special.
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