NOWHERE IN AFRICA
Germany, 2001, 141 minutes, Colour.
Juliane Kohler, Merab Ninidze, Sidede Onyulo, Lea Kurka.
Directed by Caroline Link.
Nowhere in Africa won the 2002 Academy Award for the Best For Foreign Language film.
It is not very often that audiences are offered a woman's perspective on life in the Nazi era. The usual focus, as with the recent award-winning The Pianist, is on men, with women in the background. With Nowhere in Africa, we now have not only a woman's story but the story of a young girl who flees Germany in 1938 with her parents and spends the next ten years in Kenya.
This is the kind of film that audiences can enjoy. It makes its audience aware of very serious issues while, at the same time, telling a story that most people can identify with. It is rather old-fashioned film-making, beautifully crafted and photographed, with a straightforward story. The point of view is not just female but, if one can say it, particularly feminine. The film is based on a memoir by Stephanie Zweig and has been written and directed by Caroline Link.
We have become familiar with stories of Jewish families suffering hardships in Germany at the end of the 1930s. Here there is only a short glimpse of that life because attention is immediately on a young lawyer who has been able to arrange for his wife and daughter to flee to Kenya. The rest of the family stay and are ultimately killed or taken to concentration camps.
The film is principally about how this young family cope with life in a different culture. It is shown through the eyes of the young girl, Regina. We realise that children are adaptable and Regina quickly becomes at home in this land which seems so hostile to the parents. She makes friends with the local tribes and shares their customs and rituals.
The film also makes us look through the eyes of the young mother, uprooted from the culture she knows, set down on a farm, struggling to accept the fact, becoming more distant from her husband. We realise, and her husband tells her, that her attitude to the Kenyans resembles the way Germans were looking at Jews. It takes her a long time to come to terms with Africa and its ways. In this way the film is valuable in taking us on a journey where differences have to be acknowledged, then accepted and then appreciated.
The family also experiences internment because they are Germans but the British eventually acknowledge that they are not supporters of the Nazis and allow them to manage a farm where the owner is on active service. The father himself eventually joins the British forces. His final dilemma is whether to stay in Africa or return to Germany to contribute to its reconstruction. By now almost ten years in Africa, mother and daughter have absorbed the culture and are asked to wrench themselves away from the land they now feel as their own.
There is enough plot in Nowhere in Africa for a miniseries, enough issues about tolerance, culture and prejudice and enough emotional sharing with Regina and her mother to help audiences feel that they have had a Kenyan experience.
1.The impact of the film? For German audiences? Worldwide audiences? Jewish audiences? The winning of the Oscar for best foreign language film?
2.The European locations, Germany, Braslow 1938? The atmosphere of pre World War Two Germany? The contrast with Kenya, the locations, the scenery, the homes? Authentic atmosphere of Kenya? The musical score?
3.The title, the perceptions of Jettel, Walter? The German Jews and their migration? At home or not in Africa? Regina and the second generation? The Africans and Kenyans at home in Africa?
4.The introduction to Jettel, her presence in Germany, her daughter? The arrangements for Africa? The letter from Walter? His reason for being in Africa, the German Jew? The journey, the experience of going to Africa? The farm? The contrast of Kenya with Germany?
5.Jettel, her not being satisfied in Africa? The difficulties in the marriage? Her response to Walter? Getting to know Susskind? A poorer life, her experiencing the harsher environment? Her attitude towards Regina settling in, telling her to avoid the local children? The massacre on Kristallnacht, the impossibility of returning to Germany?
6.Walter, his liking Africa, managing the farm? His friendship with Susskind? Susskind’s experience in Africa? Walter and the difficulties in the marriage? The news on the radio about Kristallnacht? The impossibility of going back? The outbreak of war, Walter and the camp, the British authorities? The contrast with Jettel and Regina in the luxury hotel?
7.Mother and daughter in the hotel, luxury, the other German women, the children?
8.The British officer, his relationship with Jettel? His helping her, her visit to Nairobi, the Jewish community? The negotiations for Walter’s release? Jettel’s sleeping with the English officer?
9.The new farm, the money, Regina in the school, learning English? Walter’s decision to serve in the British army? Jettel and her looking after the farm? The war years, Walter’s absence, Regina growing up? The farm?
10.Owuor, the Kenyan cook, his friendship with Regina? As a person, symbolising Kenya and all it had to offer?
11.The details of the Kenyan way of life, the Kenyans themselves? The contrast with the Germans?
12.The end of the war, Walter finishing his service, his returning to Kenya, the information about his father and sister and their deaths in the camps? The reconciliation with his wife? The pros and cons of returning to Germany? The decision to return?
13.The return to Germany, his being reinstated as a lawyer? Life in post-war Germany? Regina, the effect of having to leave Kenya, her farewell to Owuor? Her new life in Germany?
14.A perception of German history? Jews and non-Jews? The impact of the persecution of the Jews? The Holocaust? World War Two? The vision of a different Germany and the future of post-war Germany?
