FeistyUpper
If you don't like this, we can't be friends.
Kailansorac
Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Wuchak
Released in 2001 and directed by Caroline Link from the autobiographical novel by Stefanie Zweig, "Nowhere in Africa" chronicles life in Kenya during World War II centering around a Jewish couple (Juliane Köhler and Merab Ninidze) and their daughter (Lea Kurka and, later, Karoline Eckertz). Matthias Habich plays a fellow Jew living in Kenya who assists them while Sidede Onyulo plays their Kenyan cook, who becomes a sort-of foster father to the girl.This is a German film with only a handful of lines in English, which means you'll have to use the subtitles if English is your primary language. Like "Out of Africa" (1985), "Nowhere in Africa" is a historical drama brimming with cinematic confidence and thoroughly convincing. The difference is that the more popular earlier film focuses on colonial Kenya during WWI while this one takes place during WWII.The couple has an interesting story arc and I liked the emphasis on Native Kenyan culture. Watching it, you're swept back in time to WWII-era Kenya. There are some slow parts, but that's the nature of the beast. If you want cartoony jungle action, like "Predator," "Nowhere in Africa" won't work; but if you want realistic historical drama akin to "Out of Africa," it expertly fills the bill. While not as good as either, "I Dreamed of Africa" (2001) is an interesting companion piece, taking place in post-colonial Kenya during the 70s.The film runs 141 minutes and was shot in Kenya and Germany.GRADE: B
Raveesh Shenoy
This movie evokes a lot of emotions and thoughts in your head and based on how provoked you are, this masterpiece can range from great to astounding. This is a stunning depiction of the dynamism that the human mind displays in extreme circumstances. A smart lawyer from Germany, aware of the perception of the Nazis towards the Jew, has a grim anticipation of Nazi cruelty towards them. He sets of to Kenya, where his friend would set him up as the caretaker of a farm and this sets the stage for his wife and daughter to flee Germany and live a meager life as against certain death in Germany. What ensues then is a stunning interplay between the perspectives of the husband and the wife. The wife has led a lavish lifestyle back in Germany filled with dinner parties and posh gatherings and the husband a smart lawyer who deeply cares about the family and cannot stand being helpless as the Nazis tear apart the Jew. In Kenya, the family has to interact with locals, manage the farm and make their daughter's life a very happy one. The evolution of these characters throughout the film is as brilliant as the characters themselves. The authentic emotions the daughter experiences is extremely touching and has been portrayed brilliantly in various situations. This film also gives glimpses of the Kenyan life through their interaction with farm caretakers. This movie is about hard decisions, grief, poverty, desperation, love, family and attachment. It addresses Nazi cruelty in a very different and indirect way, through the emotions displayed by those who flee Germany. This movie will put your mind through situations that make you think about a lot of things important to your life and will leave a mark on your forever.
emuir-1
When I think of all the rubbish on film, the well-intentioned films which didn't quite pull it off, the unnecessary changes to books which would have done quite well being left alone, and the trashy melodramatic treatment of many stories set during WWII, it is a great relief to come across a film which not only appears totally authentic but holds one's attention throughout.The Kenya locations coupled with the use of local actors speaking in their own languages makes this film a stand out. The story of the educated upper middle class family uprooted from everything they knew in Germany and forced to cope with unaccustomed poverty as they start over in a totally different land among people speaking a different language is itself heartrending, especially as they were cut off from their families and comfortable civilized life as they knew it, and knew that they could not go back. They are forced to make a new life among the Africans, whom they must have regarded as illiterate and uncultivated, yet it is the Africans who accept them as they adjust to life in Kenya.This is not the Kenya of White Mischief, or Out of Africa, which showed the lives of the better off settlers. This is the Kenya of lonely isolated farms where life is primitive and hard.Everything about this film is superb, the acting, the story, the locations. One can watch it again and again without tiring of it.
mightyeye
This is probably the best film I've seen for a long time, it is also splendid for its interpretation of Africans as people, real people with emotions, traditions and hopes unlike so many other movies which regard them as part of the scenery. As for the scenery,indeed for those of us who have lived in Kenya we witness good camera movement.Based on the autobiographical novel by Stefanie Zweig, "Nowhere in Africa" it charts the ups and downs of the Redlich family a German Jewish family seeking refuge in a British ruled Kenya of which its officials were tainted with a small dose of anti-Semitism, but nevertheless was able to offer a few Jewish families shelter from the Nazi madness in Germany.The acting is splendid, the production led by Caroline Link is marvellous. The use of Swahili, German and English seemed to flow naturally and kept the magic of reality. The leading characters in the story develop and change, become rounded. This is a film worth seeing and most of all go and read the book by Stefanie Zweig.
