Out of Africa

There’s something powerful about films which are as much about the land they inhabit as they are about the characters that are featured. Films like Lawrence of Arabia or The Searchers come to mind. They are films about small intimate stories between few characters painted across a larger canvas. The land in these film not only fills the background of the movie frame, but also informs the character’s stories.

I recently had the pleasure of watching Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa. The picture stars Meryl Strep and Robert Redford. The plot is about a Danish woman named Karen Blixen who begins a marriage of convenience and moves to Kenya to begin a coffee plantation. Her husband, Bror, is a bit of a rake and doesn’t even feign interest in helping her run the farm. Eventually they go their separate ways and a big game hunter named Denys Finch Hatton (played by Redford) becomes her lover.

Hatton allows Karen Blixen to experience the natural and untamed beauty of Africa. While he too is probably not the type of man a woman should consider marrying, the pair share a love for Africa and each other. Also, through her work on the coffee farm she gains a respect and affection for the native people who work under her.

Watching many years pass by in Africa the viewer is also treated to some historical events such as the first World War I. However, the biggest treat in watching the film is the cinematography. I can say hands down it is one of the most beautiful films put on celluloid. Much like David Lean fell in love with Arabia, the makers of Out of Africa must have fallen for Africa. The audience is showered with shot after beautiful shot with the climax being an extended sequence in which Blixen and Hatton fly over Kenya in a biplane. The plane skims both mountains and rivers, getting as close to the wildlife as humanly possible.

To say Out of Africa is not a tragedy would be misleading. From the opening of the film it is obvious that this fake utopia Blixen has erected for herself has come crashing down. What happens and why I will not reveal, but needless to say, in the film, Karen Blixen loses her greatest love, which is not a man, but a continent.

Check out Out of Africa to see a love story about and within another continent. It you share a love for films like Lawrence of Arabia, you should like Out of Africa.