I am sure I'll alienate a lot of viewers out there, but I didn't particularly like "Out of Africa" (1985). While the film looked really nice (especially on the big screen), the story itself was not all that satisfying. Part of this is because I learned about the real events portrayed in the film and they were HEAVILY altered by the author, Isak Denisen. Plus, you never really got to know the Africans themselves--they were more like a part of the scenery than real people. Plus, and this is a biggie, I just didn't care about the characters.In light of this, I really, really enjoyed "Nirgendwo in Africa" ("No Where in Africa"), as it did not suffer from these same plot problems and yet was also set around the same region of Africa. While there was some decent scenery, this film focused much more on characters and was much more enjoyable--though I also must admit that the film may not appeal to everyone because its pacing is a bit slow and deliberate.The story begins in 1937. A Jewish man has recently moved to Africa from Nazi Germany. Now he can finally have his wife and young daughter join him. While it's lonely there in Kenya, at least they were able to avoid the direct horrors of the holocaust. Interestingly, much of the film is told from the viewpoint of the daughter and it's nice to see her sense of wonderment over this strange land as well as her fast acceptance of new ways and people. Her parents, in particular her mother, does not adapt so quickly--nor is she able to see the Africans as real people--at least as first.This brings me to something I liked about the film. Although the girl was a very sweet person (bright, decent and not at all superior in her behavior towards the locals), the parents had much more serious flaws. The mother's are very apparent at first, though over time you can see the father's as well. This made the film more believable as they were flawed...as we all are.Overall, while this film covers about a decade in time, it does so in a manner that does not seem episodic nor uninvolving. You really do come to care about the folks and it's like you are an unseen part of the family--with them as well as with a few of the natives. A sweet and extremely well made film. My only reservation at all is that the film has some sexuality and nudity in it. I didn't find it all that sexy, but it's probably not something you want to show to younger viewers. With teens, use your common sense, but it's probably okay for older teens. Highly rewarding and I can see how this film managed to take the Oscar for Best Foreign Language movie.

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.

Germany has produced many great movies, and "Nirgendwo in Afrika" (called "Nowhere in Africa" in English) is another one. Aside from the perceptive plot (a German Jewish family flees the Third Reich and moves to East Africa, where the daughter develops a relationship with a local African), there's also the impressive cinematography. You really do have to see it to get the true experience.Some people may wonder how many movies Germany - or anyone - can make about the Third Reich, but that misses the point. This is an important part of history, and we need to keep the memory alive to avoid repeating it. And this movie does a good job showing it. "NIA" certainly deserved Best Foreign Language Film.

When you have a story as powerful as this it's almost impossible to strike no emotional tone. But Nirgendwo in Afrika / Nowhere in Africa succeeds in just that through a mechanical adaptation to screen, mechanical direction and mechanical acting. There are few scenes that take this to a higher level and tons of missed opportunities. Take the grasshopper plague where the family more or less reunites or the whole African setting compared to Europe at that time: No parallels are drawn. Reading letters is not the way to convey heavy emotions to the audience. Caroline Link is the main suspect here because she fails in bringing this to a coherent movie. It's also overlong and moves unnecessarily slow probably to tell something about time passing, but again there are better cinematic ways of doing this.Beautiful panorama shots of the African landscape so I do advice to see this on the big screen if you can. And the two Reginas Lea Kurka and Karoline Eckertz are very adorable. Most intriguing character in the story is Jettel who is tossed around by her emotions and is in the beginning less an adult than her own child. The wider story here is about problems arising from adaptation to new circumstances.This movie received an Oscar for best foreign film. My guess is that had more to do with the subject than with the adaptation as shown by the undeserved one for De Aanslag / The Assault some years earlier. As usual the Academy had no interest in real film-making, as Ying Xiong / Hero was nominated in the same year and category.Germany's role in current cinema is diminished severely the last decade in favor of the Spanish and the Danish. Gone are the days of Fassbinder, Herzog or Schlöndorff. But luckily they still have the enormous talent of Tom Tykwer. Nothing mechanical about his movies.