How much the cinema industry, perception and tastes have changed in only 17 years. These thoughts were triggered by watching ‘Nowhere in Africa‘, a film which was awarded in 2001 the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film. Although the topic of the Holocaust remains as actual as always and is still one of the preferred themes among the winners of Academy Awards, the film has some kind of outdated look and at many moments its approach looks more like 20th century rather than 21st century cinema. I dare say that if the novel or the true story that inspired the film were brought to screen nowadays they would have looked different, and the film as it is would not make such an impact if screened as a premiere today.
source https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161860/mediaviewer/rm4046796032
The originality of the film which was in part reason for its success 17 years ago and is still actual today lies in the approach to a story that was told many times, but from different perspectives. ‘Nowhere in Africa‘ is a film about the Holocaust but there are no scenes of camps, mass murders or persecutions. Most of the action does not even take place in Europe, but in Africa. The heroes of the story belong to that category of German and European Jews who understood earlier than other and had the means to escape Germany and the countries that were to fall under German occupation. They saved their lives by fleeing to any country or place on Earth that would allow them to settle (not all did, many actually refused their entry as refugees). They reached places like China, South America and for the Redlich family in the film, Africa, more precisely Kenya, then a British colony. They live under the sun of Africa, but the black clouds of the Holocaust are all over – in the fear with which they wait for each letter from the parents and rest of family left at home, in their nightmares and in the longing for the continent they left behind, in the fight to survive and the search of their true identity. The film is about the Holocaust as a remote tragedy that impacts the lives of the refugees, but also about the confrontation of the newcomers with the different landscape, culture and people of Africa, about the prejudice that was at the root of their suffering and the one that they encounter from the local British establishment, but also about the prejudice they themselves feel towards the Africans and which they have to overcome. It’s also a film about the coming to age of a young girl who is just a kid when she arrives in Africa, who is the first to adapt and love the local landscape and people with the openness and innocence of children, and who grows to be a smart teenager inheriting the identity dilemmas of her parents.
What I liked. The whole story mixes well the themes of Holocaust and identities searching. Describing the Holocaust in absence, just by its psychological pressure, with no graphical representation succeeds quite well. The evolution of the characters is credible, especially the one of the mother in the family (Juliane Köhler). The interaction between the young girl (Lea Kurka, Karoline Eckertz ) and their local cook, Owuor (Sidede Onyulo) is very moving.
What I liked less. Some of the melodramatic turns of the story and part of the rhetoric dialogs seem to have grown old faster than the rest of the film. The acting of the father (Merab Ninidze) is not that convincing.
Film director Caroline Link did not capitalize too well in her career after winning the Oscar Award. She made just two films after Nowhere in Africa‘ and none of them had the same degree of success. The reasons may be found maybe in what looks dusty in the 2001 film today. A good story is important for a successful film but it is not enough. The story itself needs to be told in a less conformist manner.