Rating: 
Summary: OUT OF EUROPE AND INTO AFRIKA!
Review: What a delightful movie. I was in awe of the beauty, the cinematography is a triumph of the camera. The music was a mix of African beats both dark and joyful with a mix of the classics.All the actors were great and very natural and the mood of the film reminded me of the "Trees Of Theikla," and a little of 'Out OF Africa." The movie centers on a family in Germany pre WW2. The husband, Walter, sees the Nazis' are not going to leave the Jews alone and he strikes out for Kenya, Africa to work on a cattle farm. He was a lawyer in Germany but his credentials were taken away from him. He sends for his wife and five year old daughter. The period of adjustment does not come quickly to the wife, Jettel, but, Regina has already taken the wide eyed acceptance of the young. She makes fast friends with the Masai cook Owour and he looks out for her. And teaches Regina the native languages. Soon war breaks out in Europe and the Brits round up all the German immigrants and bring them in to their compounds. Which for the women and children is like staying at the Grand Hotel. Walter has been fired from his job on the cattle ranch as the owner does not want a German working for him. Jettle, has a contact and is able to get Walter another job on a farm this time. Jettle is coming around to wanting to stay in Africa. But, Walter is growing impatient and wants to do something for the war effort. He joins the British army. There is much tension between Walter and Jettle, she stays on the farm and he lives in the compound and visits. The war ends and Walter wants to go back to Germany. I won't go into the particulars of the last scenes, but I will say that this movie is worth seeing.
Not playing at your average theater, even though it won awards. Caroline Link breathed life into this story based on a true story, "Out of Europe, Into Africa." ciao yaaah69 I give this flick 41/2 OF 5
Rating: 
Summary: Hmmmph!
Review: Another timultuous love story concerning white people playing out against the harsh backdrop of the perrilously breathtaking Kenyan landscape. Sensitively handled, but doesn't really have that post-colonial edge which would have made it outstanding. The 'Africans' in this story are presented as little more than caricatured plot machinations, dragging the film toward its conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: Powerful and moving story of self-discovery.
Review: Nothing in the previews prepared me for the power of this film. The story is relatively straightforward - a Jewish family moves to Africa to avoid the coming war. What isn't straigtforward is the complexity of the characters and their growth in spirit as they adapt to the changes in their lives. The husband/father is compasionate and caring, not just to his family but to the Africans and others who help him. The wife/mother begins as a very spoiled, elitist who is forced to re-evaluate herself, her relationship with her husband, the people and country of Africa. The daughter grows in both body and spirit, adjusting almost too well to the new situation. Of the 3, she is the most grounded in reality and is wise beyond her years. The focus of the film is not the war itself but it's impact on this family. There are moments of joy, more of tears and many of deepness but this is not a depressing film. Just the opposite. I left with more respect for what these people did and how they adjusted to the changes in their lives, as well as a greater appreciation for the fact that I have never had to face some of the issues that the characters do. This is not a war movie, nor a movie about Judaism. It is a glimpse into the lives of people forced to make drastic changes in their lives and how they learn about each other and themselves. This is definitely "Best Picture" material!
Rating:
Summary: Even Better the Day After
Review: Last night leaving the theater I had Nowhere in Africa, the deserving winner of Best Foreign Film in this year's Oscars, at four stars. This drizzly Washington morning it is now at five for it sits on our minds over breakfast coffee as richly as when we had just walked out of the theater. A young Jewish lawyer in Germany as the Nazis consolidate their evil escapes to Kenya. As he lies recovering from malaria, nursed back to health by his African cook, his wife receives the delayed letter telling her that the Jewish society of Kenya has agreed to pay their passage to reunite the family. Parents and sisters are left behind to a certain fate; life on an African farm proves hardscrabble at best; the daughter, scarcely five on arrival and the voice-over narrator looking back on the years, finds a true home. The couple struggle in their marriage as much as in their efforts to survive. That they do eventually dwell successfully on the land is, naturally, almost entirely due to the friendship and loyal labor of the rural Africans they employ. The war ends; the Nazis are put in the dock; with each individual much changed from when he or she first arrived, does the family stay or return to post-war Germany? All this happens under the towering African skies and in the vast bush beauty of rural Kenya. Nowhere in Africa runs well over two hours. It might have benefitted from losing ten minutes of its running time. Beyond that, there is nothing here to dispute -- acting is sensitive and nuanced, character development and change is thoroughly convincing, secondary characters add much to the main narrative; there are even fine bits of humor -- the cook is a cook, period, but what fun for the villagers when he does one bit of woman's work at the water hole. Nowhere in Africa, tragic in its long-distance depiction of the Holocaust, is also never less than a love story of people and place and memory. It is superb.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been wonderful.......
Review: Nowhere in Africa tells a unique story about the Jewish Holocaust. What makes if different from other films of that genre is that the family flees to Africa and discovers new cultures and traditions, which would make for fascinating storytelling. Unfortunately, not much goes on in this film, and it quickly becomes repetitive, tedious, and boring. Abandoning their once-comfortable existence in Germany, Walter Redlich, his wife Jettel (Juliane Kohler) and their five-year-old daughter Regina each deal with the harsh realities of their new life in different ways. Attorney Walter is resigned to working the farm as a caretaker; pampered Jettel resists adjustment at every turn; while the shy yet curious Regina immediately embraces the country-learning the local language and customs, and finding a friend in Owuor, the farm's cook. As the war rages on the other side of the world, the trio's relationships to their strange environment become increasingly complicated as Jettel grows more self-assured and Walter more haunted by the life they left behind. As they eventually learn to cherish their life in Africa, they also endeavor to find a way back to each other. That the movie focuses mainly on the characters rather than the war gives this story its strength. Kurka and Eckertz both give skillful performances as Regina in her respective stages of adolescence. The character comes off as being not only blissfully innocent but fiercely intelligent. When the Pokot children teach her how to warm her feet in cow dung, or when she gathers everyone around for a story about angels, you can't help but wonder whether the tribe still talks about Stefanie Zweig so many years later. Likewise, when she debates with her tribal boyfriend about whether she should remove her blouse in order to more freely climb a tree (the way any Pokot teenager might do), we're presented with a clever example of culture clash. Unfortunately, a handful of problems with the directing and editing keep Nowhere in Africa from reaching its full potential. By far, the most serious issue is the way that Link positions Jettel as the main character, rather than Regina. The former is almost wholly unlovable and therefore audience members are likely to have little sympathy for her woes. From the start, she jeopardizes her family's welfare by pointedly deciding not to bring a refrigerator to Kenya, as her husband has requested. We soon learn that she has instead packed their shipping crates with fine china and spent the money on a fancy dress that she's never worn. Perhaps this would be forgivable if there were additional scenes to help us understand her torment; but as it is, Jettel seems more spoiled than anything else. The second major problem-which also centers on Jettel-is that Link wants badly to create a love story out of Jettel and Walter's unstable relationship. While we're supposed to believe that the harshness of life in the Kenyan desert pulls the two apart (and then brings them back together again), it's difficult to see how they were ever really in love to begin with. In one of the first scenes, when Jettel's father-in-law says to her, "One of you always loves the most," it's clear that the relationship is already out of balance. And sure enough, we see Jettel flirt with a neighborly expatriate and then shamelessly start up an affair with a handsome-but-manipulative British officer. Because this infidelity comes so easily to Jettel, one presumes that the cracks in her marriage are her own fault-not the desert's. With the wonderful Talk to Her, it's a shame this won Best Foreign Film. While it had so much going for it, I quickly lost interest, and became bored. And at almost 2 and a half hours, it was WAY too long. A good film is supposed to linger in your mind for days. This one was forgotten in minutes....
Rating:
Summary: "Nowhere in Africa" best of Dark Continent adventure genre
Review: While "Out of Africa" acquainted movie-goers with the wild territory of Kenya while spinning a yarn of romance, adventure and failure, the new film "Nowhere in Africa," which gives us English subtitles for the German content, breaks out with a story of compassion, passion and the perils of human relationships set against that country's splendor and ancient customs. The set-up in the first act, examining one Jewish-German successful lawyer's foresight in his family's future in Germany in 1938, convey's the fright of living in a Nazi regime. But when the picture goes to Africa, it's hard to remember where this man, woman and child originated; they are totally without direction or purpose other than to stay alive. As their worse fears play out in the homeland, the story delves into the trio's interpersonal relationships and raw emotion. Without giving away the strongest elements of the film, I was mesmerized by the performances of everyone, and most impressed with the depth of emotion displayed by their daughter who grows into womanhood in the veldt and the help of a Neirobi boarding school. The angst of the Jews during this time in history is never far from the forefront of the film, while the couple, spent physically and emotionally beyond imagination on very foreign soil, undergoes a series of transitions that grasp your attention. It is a beautiful presentation, well deserving of its Academy Award this year for Best Foreign Film. It will leave you with a newfound discovery of the push and pull of lovers in a transitional world where nothing -- even the evening meal -- can't be taken for granted.
Rating:
Summary: An extraordinary "sleeper"
Review: "Nowhere in Africa" succeeds on a number of levels: the story of an immigrant family adapting to a new home, a respectful and non-judgemental portrayal of traditional African rural life, a young woman's coming of age story, a love story involving a married couple and the Holocaust, viewed by people who escaped Germany but left family behind. Exceptional in each of these areas, and well-acted, this is a story well worth telling about our differences and our common ground, and told very very well. One of the best films I've seen in the last ten years. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Most touching and intellgent
Review: Great cinema. German movie of uncommon intelligence. Wonderful script -- engaging and coherent. Acting is natural and effervescent. Cinema photography is beautiful. Must see!
Rating:
Summary: a unique perspective on the holocaust
Review: The German film "Nowhere in Africa" provides a fascinating glimpse into a little known chapter in World War II history. The film tells of a handful of Jews who, on the eve of the war, fled to the wilds of Kenya to escape the rising tide of anti-Semitism in their home country. The movie focuses on a lawyer named Walter, his wife, Jettel, and their daughter, Regina, who narrates the tale. The foundation of the story rests on a series of interlocking ironies. First, these Jewish refugees find themselves being treated in a more humane fashion in this ostensibly "uncivilized" society than they were in the so-called "civilized" one they've been forced to flee. Second, the men in this dislocated community end up fighting against their own native country, eagerly joining the allied forces in their attempt to overthrow Hitler. Moreover, Jettel, although she and her family are themselves victims of prejudice and bigotry, still feels superior to and looks down upon a culture and a people she believes are clearly inferior to her own. Finally, as the war comes to a close, Walter and Jettel virtually trade places in their attitudes: he, once so eager to remain in Kenya, feeling the need to return to a post-Hitler Germany to help rebuild his native country and she, once so eager to leave it, wanting to remain in a land she has learned to love, a country she has come, in many ways, to think of as her own. In fact, it is the transition Jettel undergoes throughout the course of the story that makes "Nowhere in Africa" such a fascinating film. For Jettel is clearly the most interesting and complex character in the movie. Haughty and coldly superior at the outset, she eventually comes to see the beauty of "differences" that exist between peoples and cultures, an appreciation that, paradoxically, brings home for her the universal nature of human beings. Despite the grim reality of what is happening to her family and friends back home, Jettel is at first unable to shake the sense of pampered privilege she has long taken for granted as a result of her upper middle class upbringing and background. But both the land and the people of Kenya soon transform her into a woman who is able to see and understand the truly important things in life - tolerance, acceptance, love, family. The relationship between Walter and Jettel is a truly complex one; they are not a conventionally happily married couple, but rather one torn apart by their different, often-conflicting views of the world and their somewhat shaky love for one another. There are times in the movie when we simply do not know where one or the other partner is coming from - and that ambiguity heightens both the reality and the drama of the characters and their situation. As the ever-observant daughter, Regina is a more conventional, less well-rounded personality, more a plot device than a fully developed character in her own right. Still, she provides a great deal of the emotional depth needed to fully engage the audience in the story. All the actors are superb, with Juliane Kohler as Jettel proving a particular standout. In addition, the wide screen photography captures, with crystal clear clarity, the haunting beauty of the African countryside, bringing an almost epic quality to this otherwise intimate family drama. For, indeed, despite the personal nature of the story, there is lurking ever present in the background - mainly through letters received from desperate and increasingly endangered relatives back home - the larger picture of a world gone suddenly, inexplicably mad, a world that feels strangely remote yet which is all too real in its menace and influence. This isolated community may provide for these dislocated people a refuge for the body, but it can't provide a refuge for the mind and soul. "Nowhere in Africa" offers a unique, eye-opening perspective on the holocaust.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent -- the best of this genre
Review: At first glance, "Nowhere in Africa" might appear to be something we've seen on the screen before, i.e., "Out of Africa", "The Flame Trees of Thika" and the much inferior "I Dreamed of Africa" -- another installment in the European-in-East-Africa genre: Europeans newly arrived in Africa, cross-cultural conflict and confusion followed by acceptance, an "old Africa hand" lending support, a child growing up more African than European, the noble African servant, encounters with the local fauna, etc. But "Nowhere in Africa", while definitely part of the genre, is better than the other films mentioned. Largely this is the result of the strong character development. We see husband and wife really changed by their experience. Adding depth to the story is the fact that these European ex-pats are escaping Nazi persecution. The fact that they can only do so by participating in colonial oppression is not lost on them. The dialogue and acting are first rate, as are the cinematography, editing, and music. There are many memorable scenes, including some interesting ones where voices are layered over images in such a way that you can't tell whether the couple are speaking to each other or keeping their thoughts to themselves. Great work. Recommended!
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