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.
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.