Out of Africa

Rating:
Summary: Beyond this place there be dragons
Review: "Out of Africa" stands out as one of the most spectacular movies ever made. At the 1985 Academy Awards this movie won seven Oscars including Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Picture. It deserved all seven!

It is filled with romance, scenery, real-life struggles and the inevitability of fate. It is a journey into Africa and into love. The escape is in the hand of fate. This movie presents Africa as a paradise. The natural environment is harsh, yet unspoiled in this movie.

This is based on the true story of Danish writer Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) who left Denmark to marry German Klaus Maria Brandauer/Baron Bror Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and start a dairy in Kenya.

Some women do enjoy the security of a man looking after them, however Karen is different. She seems to desire companionship and offers her fortune in exchange for marriage. Her husband changes his mind about the dairy and instead they use her money on a risky venture to grow coffee. This is not a marriage based on an intense romance, in fact, Karen is marrying her lover's brother.

Soon after they arrive in Africa, it becomes apparent this is not a satisfying marriage for Karen. Not only is her husband unfaithful to her, he gives her syphilis. Disease is not the only threat, she also has to fight floods and fire. There are lions which apparently try to attack Karen and Denys although I thought that was pretty unlikely in the situation.

I didn't like the "hunter" aspects or when the two lions are killed, but if you watch at the end, I think even the lions forgive the hunter. When I've seen lions during the day they were normally napping in the shade. Apparently they had trouble getting the lions to act aggressive and there is information on the DVD explaining these details.

Karen finds acceptance in big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford) who loves her ability to tell stories. He starts the stories and she completes them. I think he is impressed by her confidence and creativity. He sees who she really is. Her husband is obviously blind to this beautiful goddess he has taken to Africa.

She in turn is delighted by this interest and slowly allows him into her world. While Denys and Karen are a perfect match and as close to soul mates as possible, Denys is unsure of commitment and explains how a piece of paper won't make him love her more. Meryl Streep and Robert Redford have chemistry, chemistry and more chemistry in this movie! They mostly share a few kisses, yet their relationship is on such a deep level, I think it could survive if they just told each other stories.

What Karen seems to truly desire is a man who will sacrifice to be with her. She wants to be of value. Denys tells Karen she has confused "want" and "need." This is an excellent portrayal of the gender differences. Man wants to be free to come and go and woman wants security, love and commitment. She wants to be treated with respect.

Denys "wants" Karen and Karen seems to "need" Denys. The question is not whether he will realize this in time before he loses her, but whether or not fate will turn their lives into a tragedy or allow them to form a true relationship. As Karen says:

"When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers."

Karen seems the surrender to her fate and is able to experience a brief moment of ecstasy in her life even though she is wounded from the experience.

When you view this movie, there are various elements which hint at the ending, yet I didn't recognize them until viewing this the second time. This is a movie I watch every few years because I too once lived on a farm in Africa. It was not quite this romantic because I was still a child. This movie makes me terribly homesick because once we left Africa, we never went back. Africa seems a moment in time, maybe everyone should live there once. When I watch this movie I need a big box of tissues!

The best moment in the movie is when Farah asks Karen to build a very big fire so he will know where to find her. It is a moment so beautiful and poetic, I've not seen anything like it in any other movie. I appreciated this movie more now that I'm in my 30s and married than before when I was single and had just returned from Africa myself. This movie is contemplative and deals with complex issues.

Spectacular Scenery and Emotionally Satisfying.

Rating:
Summary: An epic romance classic
Review: Out of Africa is simply a masterpiece of cinematic art. This film does an exceptional job of delving into each of the characters and creating an understanding of what it is that makes all lovers and humanity itself such a difficult and complex chain of events. Meryl Streep proves once again what an acting legend she is by playing Karen Blixen, a Danish "immigrant" to Eastern Africa and how she learned to fall in love with the land, the people, and of a British hunter named Denys, played by a very American Robert Redford. Their relationship is unique and genuinely romantic, certainly one of the great epic romances of all time. Their love is a play between what your heart needs and what your head tells you what you should do with your life. In the end, their love is not of this world, it is not ours. It is a lesson in learning that nothing is forever, nothing is owned by us, not even the love we create for ourselves and then discard. This earth, represented so well by Africa, owns everything we think we have, and ultimately, like Denys, we all go back to whence we come. Out of Africa is a gorgeously filmed movie, with some of the most spectacular scenery ever recorded on film. The flying over Africa scene is romance and adventure next to none. The film score by John Barry is certainly one of the best of all time, and it perfectly captures the romantic grandeur of Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, and their glorious attempt at forever possessing each other's heart, only to learn that their love is not to remain constant, just like the beauty of the African savannah is not to be consistent. A romantic, visual, musical, and historical masterpiece, Not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Great, adult romance. Beautiful DVD.
Review: This movie puts Isak Dinesen's "Out of Africa" up on the screen, and for my money it is the finest filmed version of a book ever done. The reasons for this do not come from Sydney Pollack's vision of the book being "faithful" exactly (although it is pretty faithful). It is more that he perfectly captured the feel of Dinesen's Africa. The characters in the movie are all based on real people, primarily Isak Denisen (real name Karen Blixen), her husband Bror Blixen, and Denys Finch Hatton. Suffice to say that Meryl Streep, Klaus Maria Brandauer, and Robert Redford all give great performances. In real life both Hatton and Blixen were great white hunters who, despite sleeping with one another's wives and acquaintances, (including aviator Beryl Markham) somehow remained good friends. For me, despite great, intelligent acting from Streep and Brandauer, this is a Robert Redford film. Redford's intense, understated style was never put to better use (Pollack always seemed to know the best use for this actor) and it is a pleasure to watch the way he says so little, but you can see a rich, internal life happening all the time. Plus, it is a kind of kick to see Redford, a staunch conservationist and liberal, playing a great, white hunter in end-of-Empire Africa. Finally, if you own this film on VHS, it is worth going for the DVD. It is simply beautiful looking.

Rating:
Summary: A Romance Beyond Our Dreams
Review: Wow, what a movie, first of all you got Streep and Redford two greats of our time, then you add beauty from Africa and a great script put it all together and you get a great movie. I think this is one of my favorite movies of all time for a lot of reasons let alone the scenery. Pollack did an awesome job of direction, taste and style. Thumbs up to the stars a MUST SEE!!!!

Rating:
Summary: just a memory
Review: Only buy this movie to relive your memories. Make that 2 stars

Rating:
Summary: Beauty on the Screen
Review: Sydney Pollack did a beautiful job bringing this story to life.

Rating:
Summary: Beauty and Talent
Review: This movie has three stars: Africa (cinematography), Music, and the incomparable Meryl Streep. These pull the long, slow moving, plot line along and manage to over-shadow the weak dialog and, most of all, Robert Redford's attempt at acting. He plays his usual good looking, smug, self-centered jerk part once again (and again and again!) Meryl Streep managed to portray a strong sensitive woman, emulate a Danish accent and prevail over Redford's banal character to carry this film. She is undoubtedly the best actress ever! Other reviews have discussed the plot's strengths and weaknesses so I will only say in summary, watch it for its beauty but forget the relationship between Countess Blixen and Mr. Bland..

Rating:
Summary: Redford, Streep--Great Romance
Review: The film is based on the life and writings of Baroness Karen Blixen, a Danish woman who, fearing that she would be single forever, married her lover's brother, and moved to Kenya in East Africa. While there she starts a coffee plantation and struggles with maintaining her physical and emotional health and meets a big game hunter named Denys (Robert Redford)--a man in love with stories.

This film is a cinemagraphic beauty. The African landscape is breathtaking.

The chemistry between Redford and Streep is perfect. Well acted and scripted , the film draws you in. The tension between the two fluctuates from friendship and intrigue and desire with romance. Their meetings becoming more intriguing as the story unfolds.

Rating:
Summary: Epic Standard
Review: You must own this one. To merely watch it as it comes and goes on cable, while you stock the DVD library with forgettable actors and uninteresting titles, is very irresponsible. This movie is an epic classic in every sense of the word; most everyone will agree. Out of Africa is the benchmark standard against which all subsequent films of imperialistic ilk are compared.

Rating:
Summary: One Of The Best Romantic Movies Ever Made!
Review: This is undoubtedly one of the finest movies made over the last twenty years or so. Both Meryl Streep and Robert Redford are absolutely terrific in playing star-crossed lovers who are also intellectual soul mates in what has to be one of the greatest and yet saddest of all movie love affairs. This is a dramatization culled from the memoirs written by Isak Dinesen about her fateful decision to leave her comfortable but boring life in Scandinavia behind in favor of a much more dangerous and adventurous try at a new life as a married woman in Africa. Blowing her inheritance trying to support her philandering new husband's ill-advised business ventures, she falls in love with the land, the people, and the times. Indeed, out of Africa comes the experience of a young lifetime.

In fact, the topography of Africa provides the perfect background and the most splendid of opportunities for her to live her life on her own terms, out of the long and suffocating shadow of family and social convention. And the journey taken by Karen Blixen is a long, joyous, and eventful one, a trip that literally takes her breath away with its rich, varied, and enriching experiences. Yet all this adventure has its cost in pain and suffering, and her growth into a woman of substance who eventually finds her way into a dreamy intellectual played so well by Redford also fates her to become a woman bereft of that that means most to her; her lover, her farm, and her place in Africa itself.

This is a lovely film, one that capitalizes by using the dramatic and primitive backdrop of wild Africa in painting a period piece that is unparalleled in its graphic portrayal of life on the very edges of civilization in an epochal time of Africa's evolution to modernity. The cinematography alone is worth the price of the DVD, for anyone who loves nature will recognize Redford's steady hand in influencing the way the fragile yet exquisite sub-Saharan environment is depicted. I have seen the movie a number of times, and each time come away with a renewed sense of how fragile and wondrous the ecology of this part of Africa is. This is a wonderful movie I can heartily recommend. Enjoy