Nowhere in Africa (German with English Subtitles)

Rating:
Summary: Haunting
Review: Can't stop thinking about it. Especially to anyone who (with family) has had a strong expatriate experience. What I got out of the movie has nothing to do with being Jewish, Nazism or Africa--there is a whole other dimension to the film that has deeply affected me, even if one could have theoretically removed all those elements.

Rating:
Summary: Judge a film by the company it keeps
Review: You can judge a film by the company it keeps, and amazon's always spot-on recommending technology tells me that fans of 'Nowhere in Africa' are also interested in the following current releases: Hotel Rwanda; A Very Long Engagement; Bad Education; and Million Dollar Baby. Since I've seen and am enthusiatic about each of those, I'd like to suggest that fans of any of those films check out 'Nowhere in Africa,' which is richly deserving of its 2002 Academy Award for best foreign language film.

Pay no attention to other critiques on this page about needing to understand German, or about not being able to understand the subtleties of the dialogue because it's not in English. That's hogwash. The subtitles here are excellent, as is the acting, most notably by Juliane Köhler and Merab Ninidze as lead protagonists Jettel and Walter Redlich. These are great actors who skillfully portray every nuance of their actions and feelings in a way that transcends any language barrier.

My only complaint is that director Caroline Link could have been a bit more judcious about the editing process. At 2 hours 21 minutes, the film feels about 15 minutes too long and drags at stretches. That's a small quibble in the face of the overall quality of this production.

Rating:
Summary: It's easy to see why this film won an Oscar...
Review: It has an epic scope and deals with serious issues -- how one group exploits and oppresses another.

Set in the period before, during, and after World War II, this movie tells the story of a an upper middle class Jewish family fortunate enough to get out of Germany in time. They end up starting from scratch in Kenya, where life for them is very different and very difficult. The family members (a father joined by his wife and young daughter) have varying degrees of difficulty in adopting to this new country and relating to the Africans who work the farms they are managing. The father -- a lawyer in Germany -- respects the Kenyan staff and immediately sets about learning the language. The mother has a more difficult time adjusting and wants the Kenyan cook (on whom they are deeply dependant) to speak German and resists learning the language. The young daughter quickly becomes assimilated, since her playmates in the isolated farm are Kenyans. As they struggle to survive and adjust, news reaches them from time to time about what's happening to the Jews in Germany (including their family).

My only criticism is that this film could have been edited to make it more suitable for family viewing -- older children and teenagers -- which it isn't, in my opinion. You really couldn't show it in a high school, for example, although the content on the whole would be terrific for a conversation on a number of important topics, including cultural differences.

But -- there are a couple of scenes of animals being slaughtered (and people eating VERY fresh meat) that turned my stomach, as well as some very explicit sex scenes. BOth of these kinds of scenes were really gratuitous to what the movie was intending to say, in my opinion. Otherwise, this movie is outstanding -- it really provokes thoughts about how we regard others who are different -- whether Jewish or Kenyan -- and how we deal with diversity with respect without losing our identity completely.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Any Way One Can Look At It
Review: I have a taste for international and independent films. This sleeper really hit me hard. What a pleasant surprise. I thought the movie would be good, but it turned out terrific.
The story and background are great. The film settings are phenomenal. And all that is bested by mindbogglingly fine acting by every actor in the film, all portraying characters of such depth and realism, as a viewer, I felt I was right there with these folks in these lives.
Great film. Top marks from this humble viewer.

Rating:
Summary: Subtitle Nightmare
Review: Looks like a great film, only... can't understand a word. Germans hear and understand all the dialogue while those of us who know only English have to figure out what's being said and, more importantly, what's being felt. Subtitled questions go unanswered. Beware this DVD. My wife saw this film in a theater and swears the subtitles helped her follow the story. This DVD does no such thing. Know German, or else.

Rating:
Summary: "What I've learned here is how important differences are."
Review: Establishing cultural contrasts in the opening scenes--German children playing in snow alternating with scenes of an African riding a bicycle through the dry, hot plains--director Caroline Link creates a sensitive portrait of the Redlich family, German Jews who acknowledge the rising anti-Semitism in Breslau in 1938 and abandon Germany for Africa. Walter Redlich (Merab Ninidze), his wife Jettel (Juliane Kohler), and young daughter Regina (Lea Kurka), forced to leave their extended family behind, relocate to a remote, subsistence level farm in Kenya.

Regina, like all children, quickly becomes fascinated by her new life and the cultures she discovers. Walter, now working as a farm manager instead of as a lawyer, and spoiled Jettel, who has brought along her Rosenthal china instead of a refrigerator, face more immediate difficulties acclimating to the culture and their changed circumstances.

Director Link places the emphasis here on the impossibility of the family's "fitting in" because of the differences in language, race, education, religion, and former lifestyle. Their African cook Owuor (elegantly played by Sidede Onyulo), however, helps them adjust to their new lives, and a warm relationship evolves between them, especially with young Regina. When war breaks out, Walter is interned by the British, later joining Operation J, a group of Jews Against Hitler. Jettel must recognize the realities of life, adapting to what is, rather than what used to be.

Link focuses on Africa, not the Holocaust, revealing what is happening in Europe through letters, not through direct scenes. Merab Ninidze plays a realistic Walter, agonizing over the fate of his family in Germany and impatient with Jettel's spoiled petulance in Africa. Juliane Kohler movingly portrays Jettel's transformation from protected wife to a woman with goals, totally committed to making the farm work and freed from the social restrictions in Germany. Lea Kurka, outstanding as the young Regina, has the enthusiasm of youth, an unrestrained love for Owuor and the African children she meets, and the ability to accept being an outsider at the British school she attends, resented because of her academic success and German roots. Eventually, the family must decide where, if anyplace, they really "belong" and whether to accept repatriation.

The cinematography by Gernot Roll emphasizes the harsh reality of life and its day-to-day tedium, not the romantic sunrise-on-the-Serengeti shots of many other African films. Academy Award winner in 2002 for Best Foreign Film, the film emphasizes real life, real hardships, and real cultural differences, stressing the innate belief that humans, no matter how tolerant of other cultures, function most effectively and most happily within a shared heritage. Mary Whipple


Rating:
Summary: A New Life in Africa
Review: Nowhere in Africa is a beautiful story regarding a secular family that is Jewish in name only. Religious Jews would not consider them as numbering among their own---but this doesn't deter Adolph Hitler from desiring their extinction. Genetics is all that matters to the Nazis. The father, Walter, a young attorney, isn't naive and realizes that he and his wife Jettel, along with their daughter Regina must leave Germany as rapidly as possible. Of all places, he opts for Kenya. The story revolves around the challenges confronting them in their new surroundings. They initially are compelled to earn their livelihood as mere tenant farmers who are despised by the British landowner. Jettel loses respect for Walter and wrongly blames him for their plight. Regina is confused but makes fast friends with the African cook Owuor. The family bond is under tremendous stress as the world war follows then even to the African wilderness. We observe Regina turning into a young lady. Will the marriage survive? Can bigotry be defeated, or at least rendered more tolerable? These are the central questions to be resolved. It is not difficult to see why Nowhere in Africa earned the 2002 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting and powerful movie !
Review: Inspired by the biography of Stephan Zweig , this movie focuses around the tragedy of a jew marriage who decide to live in Kenia , to avoid to be victim of the Nazis . The slow but progressive adaptaton to the costumes and way of of living of the native people , the engagement with their rituals ,and the shocking of this inmense wasteland and arresting images in the middle of the heart of Africa will make for you to experience a unequaled journey .
Once more the emigration is the question to solve . How long would you spent in a country with so many differences in almost the possible issues for you think ?
The barrier of the language , the unbearable heat ,the search for water , the food , the loneliness and the ancestral rituals . And add all these inconvenients , the uncertainness about the disinformation about what's going on in Germany with news through an old radio and unexpected letters that come from time to time . He is a lawyer and obviously in such agresive environment he lives with the illusion of get back to huis beloved German. But meanwhile he has to face the difficulties of life ; the rebelness of his wife and daughter for stay in the jungle .
But there will be changes of different nature that progressively will twist the fate of every one of them . The unavoidable contrast between ancestral beliefs , the deep sense of humanity will come from a native whose performance steals the show in this poignant and interesting story .
Don't miss this work . And don't doubt to acquire . You will be widely rewarded with this buy. Mrs Johanne Kohler is brilliant in her role as the wife and both actress who play the role of their daughter are superb , with great naturality and expressiveness.
Dazzling direction of Caroline Link and one of the best films of Gemany in the new raising century.


Rating:
Summary: A superb movie, and no, it's not too long. . .
Review: First of all, let me say that I see posts from reviewers here describing the movie as ten minutes too long, fifteen minutes too long, etc., - I respectfully disagree.

I've seen the movie three times with three different people (one of them my teenage daughter - teenagers, as you know, don't have a lot of patience), and I find the running length just right, and additionally, none of the people I saw the movie with were complaining that it was too long.

Second, I unabashedly loved this film. And surprisingly, the aforementioned teenager really liked this film as well. I was certain she would complain that it was B O R I N G when it was over, but she thought it was great, so perhaps teenage viewers in your household might feel the same way.

I won't belabor the plot or the characters as it's been done so well in the previous reviews posted here, but I want to note that one of the most interesting things in the movie is the mother/wife's realization that she has become a much finer person as a result of the years spent with people she considered sub-human when she arrived, and secondly, as a result of the things she was forced to learn and do to survive (and eventually prosper) in Africa.

She doesn't wish to return to Germany - she is a better person in Africa.

Even though she does reluctantly return to Germany with her husband, she knows that she will never be as complete an individual as she was in adopted land. It's a nice piece of character development that acts as a interesting sidebar to her daughter's maturation in Africa.

Rating:
Summary: A well-acted drama that leaps over its shortcomings
Review: Most movies about the Holocaust, however specifically or obstensibly, usually take place in Germany and have much shouting in German and moping in Yiddish. It was a nice change, then, to see a movie about 'the ones that got away,' German Jews who actually escaped the hand of the Nazis and lived and worked far away. Nowhere in Africa, a recent winner for Best Foreign Film, is the story of the Redlich family, who raise their young girl on the plains of Africa while WWII blasts away in their homeland. For most of the movie, it's an enjoyable little slice-of-life about clashing cultures and that underlying theme of the family's tragedies overseas. Link's nimble camera captures the country's harsh beauty, and narration from the young daughter (in her older years) is warm and subtle. The drama within the family (unfaithfulness and the like) wears a little thin after a while, and the movie could have used a little more work in the editing room. Nowhere in Africa doesn't exactly escape the trappings of its genre, but it provides some nice scenery chewing and some moments of stark beauty that make it worth a rental. GRADE: B