Nowhere in Africa (2001)

From Refugee to Enemy Alien

Some Jews in order to escape from Hitler's persecution and genocide in the late 1930's fled to parched Kenya in Africa where they found the life primitive and faced new kinds of hostility. This movie zeroes in on a family from Breslau. A mother and her daughter take flight to Kenya to join the husband who is a tenant farmer struggling to eke out a living. Regina, the daughter, accepts the blacks and their culture while the mother shows her initial prejudices. Her husband owes a debt to his Kenyan male cook because the servant saved him from a severe attack of malaria. The cook befriends Regina.
The British, colonial rulers of Kenya, interred many Jews and made their exiled life harder even though England was at war with Nazi Germany. The family's status changed from refugees to enemy aliens.
This German (best foreign film Oscar winner for 2002) movie has vivid scenes of the life in Africa. Great scenes of old 30's vintage vehicles traveling around the arid landscape. The movie deals with the complex world of the three main characters. Both the husband and wife are struggling with their own demons while the daughter accepts her new African home but struggles to understand the strange adult world around her.
The director is willing to take chances and present a multi-layered view of the lives of these refugees. The actors are outstanding, and the film has great cinematography. An adult film for viewers who want more than Hollywood treacle.
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Clawed Back from the Dead August 1, 2008

A wonderful film

This movie depicts a young Jewish family that flees Nazi Germany before the outbreak of World War II, and settles in Kenya. The husband (Merab Ninidze) was a lawyer in his native land, and he becomes a farmer in Africa, working for others. Their daughter (Lea Kurka and Karoline Eckertz) grows up with her heart in Africa, and little or no recollection of Germany.

Their families are killed in the Nazi Holocaust, even though the husband tries in vain to warn them of the coming storm, and get them to leave. They believe that they are Germans and safe, and that no harm will come to them. After the war ends, the husband is offered a job as a judge in Frankfurt and the family returns, even though the wife (Juliane Köhler) and daughter resist and have almost no feelings for the country at all--only negatives ones on the part of the wife, who believes they would be living among the murderers of their families.

It is a lovely film of Africa, not the lush scenes of "Out of Africa," but a much harsher existence. The central characters are the husband, wife and daughter. However, the heart and soul of Kenya--if not Africa itself--seems to be embodied and reflected in Sidede Onyulo, who portrays the family's cook and spirit, and connects all of the characters. Caroline Link is to be congratulated for directing a truly superb movie, which should withstand the test of time.
January 23, 2008

A MUST-SEE gem for the entire family!

Just a beautiful, engrossing film that emphasizes the importance of family, especially when times are tough/dangerous .. ..

It will remind many of the numerous sacrifices that our parents made for our future and what they had to face at the time .. ..

A well-deserved OSCAR for the makers, this gem is a MUST-SEE for the entire family and will give a gentle prodding to everyone that it's the differences between cultures that makes this world so wonderful and a blessing to be in .. .. January 7, 2008

A Love Story

Although much can be said about Jews leaving Germany prior to Hitler sealing the border, it has all been said before.

The thrust of this movie, pardon the pun, is the husband's desperation for his wife's love and support. He wants to be something and do something with his life and yet, here he is self-exiled to Kenya to sit on a farm. He wants his wife to desire him but she is aloof and remote. At times his quiet desperation is palpable.

For me, this view was different and interesting with the back-drop being the age-old tale of the Holocaust (rather than at the forefront of the story).

This tale will resonate with anyone who has been adrift at life from their home, their family and the person they love. Truly touching film.

September 23, 2007

An affecting film but one which doesn't let us get too close

If Jettel Redich, a sophisticated, attractive and perhaps shallow woman with a small daughter, a loving husband and a warm, extended family, had had her way in 1938 she would not have left Germany to join her husband in East Africa. Of course, if she hadn't she and her daughter, along with all her family, would have been killed in the German death camps three or four years later. Jettel (Julianne Kohl), her husband Walter (Merab Ninidze) and their daughter Regina (Lea Kurka and then, older, Karoline Eckertz) are Jews. Walter, a prosperous lawyer and judge in Germany, could see what was happening. He managed to get an exit visa, went as a Jewish refuge to Kenya, and then sent for his family. Jettel with help got exit visas, but only reluctantly. The other family members all believed their fellow Germans would come to their senses and the Hitler thing would pass. Nirgendwo in Afrika tells us what happened to Walter, Jettel and Regina. It's an absorbing story which, even in 141 minutes, tries to do too much. Even so, and even if nothing really seems deeply affecting and certainly not tragic, the Redich family and how they changed kept me watching. The movie is rambling but also often affecting.

The best Walter could do was to hire on to run a failing cattle outpost. The land is dry and full of scrub. He writes to his wife asking her bring a number of practical things they will need. She, instead, brings an expensive ball gown. Their house is scarcely more than a large shack. Malaria is always a possibility. The native Kenyans look upon them as curiosities. Water has to be carried from a distant well. In the midst of all this we see three things. Walter knows that staying in Germany would have meant death for them. He's prepared to do what he must to make some sort of life where he is. Jettel is appalled by what she sees and faces. She longs for her family and for the life she had. There, she was married to a prosperous lawyer and judge. Here, she is married to a hired hand. Regina, about six years old, simply accepts everything. Soon she's playing with the native children and picking up their language. The family has a cook, a tall man named Owuor (Sidede Onyulo). Walter tries to deal with him respectfully. Jettel without thinking about it treats him as a servant. Regina as usual simply accepts him as a friend. To give you an idea of the tone of the movie, if Nirgendwo in Afrika were remade by Hollywood, the part of Owuor would undoubtedly be played by Morgan Freeman.

In the course of the movie they make one good friend, a tough fellow Jew who left Germany in 1933. They are interred by the British as a possible threat when war comes in 1939, even though they are refugees from Nazi Germany. They eventually are released. Sexual dissatisfaction abounds. Walter finds employment on a better farm, he joins the British Army and is sent to Burma. Jettel learns how to run the farm and deal with the native workers. Regina grows into a unselfconscious child whose friends are all native children. She learns about being a Jew when she is sent to an English school in Nairobi where the anti-Semitism is more condescending than vicious. In a subtle way Caroline Link, the director, also lets us make our own discoveries regarding the treatment of Jews in Thirties Germany and the treatment of Africans by colonialists. By now we've seen Walter's and Jettel's marriage nearly break apart. We even experience locusts. We also see, gradually, how Walter for all his practicality yearns to return to Germany after the war. We see how Jettel has grown into a responsible, capable woman who has come to love where she is and hates the idea of returning. Regina, or course, simply has become a part of Africa and of the people she knows. Like the movie itself, the conclusion is not quite satisfying and not quite unhappy.

The only serious reservation I have about the movie are the two instances of fairly explicit coupling involving Walter and Jettel. My objections have nothing to do with prudery, but with how sex is usually used to pander to the audience. In both scenes sexual intimacy is used to show us the longing and need for the kind of shared intimacy that includes but goes well beyond sexual need. The director chooses to show us so much skin, so many positions and so much perspiration that, in my view, the audience is simply encouraged to become voyeurs in the name of art. As with most dramas, the more explicit the sex we see, the more the story-line comes to a halt.

Nirgendwo in Afrika won the 2003 Academy Award for best foreign language film. It is beautifully photographed. September 21, 2007

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