Just when you thought you might scream if you had to sit through one more impeccably crafted, impossibly high-minded film about the Holocaust, along comes Nowhere in Africa.
Don't start screaming just yet. Then again, a series of small, exasperated sighs might be in order.
It's not that Nowhere in Africa isn't as impeccably crafted and impossibly high-minded as the rest. It's just that there are some curious differences worth noting.
Although this German import falls roughly into the parameters of a traditional Holocaust movie — and how bizarre that we've now arrived at a historical moment where we can casually refer to "traditional Holocaust movies" — Nowhere in Africa is in many ways a Holocaust movie only by default.
The shadow of the Nazi genocide hangs heavy over the film, but it's only one plot among many, even if it is the one that sets the film's real story in motion. We don't witness a single atrocity, most of the action takes place far from the killing floors of Europe, and you'd barely even know the film's main characters were Jews if the movie didn't periodically nudge us into remembering.
Truth be told, the Holocaust elements almost feel tacked on. It's as if director Caroline Link were just a little too eager to make sure her movie was stocked with a healthy smattering of subjects that traditionally do well with the folks who hand out awards at Oscar time. And as Oscar bait goes, what better strategy, outside of having a mentally challenged self-starter for a hero, than drumming up a little old fashioned guilt over the wholesale slaughter of Europe's Jewish population?
As it happens, Nowhere in Africa did win last year's Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a once-proud category whose winners in recent years have increasingly tended towards the pretty-but-tepid. That might just tell you what you need to know.
Nowhere in Africa is not a bad movie, but it's a fairly standard study of what happens when very different cultures come together. The culture collision is black Africa/white European (the Jewish aspect is almost immaterial; any Euro-culture would have sufficed) and the whole thing ultimately feels a bit like a promotional spot for the joys of cultural diversity.
The story concerns a family of refugees from Hitler's Germany who find safe haven in Africa, one of the few spots on earth that opened its doors to Jews in the troubled days of WWII. The father, Walter (Merab Ninidze), was a lawyer back in Germany, but he quickly discovers there's little use for that profession in his new country. He accepts work on a Kenyan cattle farm, where he soon comes to realize that all his fancy western education is useless compared to the simple, practical wisdom of the native Africans.
Walter's pretty but vain wife, Jettel (Juliane Kohler), on the other hand, is a slow learner. She accepts Africa only as a necessary inconvenience and attempts to re-animate her past life by surrounding herself with patterned china, expensive evening gowns and other emblems of Euro-culture that have absolutely no place on an isolated cattle farm in Kenya. Nowhere in Africa isn't big on subtlety, and the movie makes it all-too-clear from the outset that Jettel will either overcome her cultural assumptions and prejudices or be consumed by them.
As Jettel goes batty with nothing to do and nothing to eat but potatoes and cornmeal, the couple's young daughter grows wise. Nine-year-old Regina (played first by Lea Kurka, and then by the somewhat older Karoline Eckertz) is young and innocent enough that she has no need to make her peace with Africa; she simply becomes part of it. While mom and dad agonize and compromise, Regina is hanging with the locals and traipsing off to distant mountain tops for ringside seats at the ritual sacrifices of various critters.
It's all fairly slow and heavy-handed, but Nowhere in Africa is generally effective in painting its portrait of family dynamics and the clash of cultures. Cracks begin appearing in Walter and Jettel's marriage once they're removed from the familiar context of European society; gradually they become strangers to one another, a position that mirrors their status as strangers in a new land. And just in case we hadn't noticed, the movie periodically puts words in hubby's mouth pointing out the similarities between his wife's lack of respect for African culture and the Nazi's attitude towards the Jews. Again, it's not exactly the subtlest of observations, but the movie does make its point.
Nowhere in Africa is a calculated crowd-pleaser, where moments of high emotion occur in slow motion and the storytelling blithely incorporates elements both sentimental and symbolic. It's also the sort of movie where characters experience dramatic, sudden spurts of personal growth at regular intervals, the most obvious example being the transformation Jettel undergoes when her husband exits the picture for a while. In no time flat, she becomes a bastion of strength, goodness and perfect understanding of all things African. Suddenly, she's speaking the local dialect perfectly, proclaiming the country beautiful and cutting her hair short, as if renouncing the vanity of her past life by cutting herself loose into the great, pan-cultural void. "Differences are good," she smiles, so caught up in her new, all-consuming love of Africa that she barely notices when World War II ends.
The movie looks good and hits many of the right emotional notes, but it never quite gels, and it certainly doesn't justify its running time of nearly 140 minutes. Even more troubling, there's ultimately something that doesn't feel quite believable about the characters or the changes they go through. At times, I felt my attention wandering away from the film — never a good sign — and wondering just who these actors were up on the screen, or if any of them might actually be, well, Jewish. (The odds are against it, as there are barely enough Jews left in Germany to put together a decent game of bridge.)
Far be it for me to suggest that you have to be a one-legged man to play a one-legged man in a movie. In this particular case, though, it couldn't hurt. Every little bit of credibility helps.
I can't help but think of those Jewish "theme" restaurants that are so popular these days in Poland. That country was a little too successful at killing off its actual Jewish population, but never fear: there are plenty of Polish citizens of good, gentile stock, happy to dress up in Jewish peasant garb and dish out "genuine" ethnic cooking for a price. It's all about as authentic as the animatronic Hall of Presidents at Disney World, and twice as creepy. And while this may not have much to do with the ultimate artistic success or failure of a film like Nowhere in Africa, it's never a bad idea to keep these things in some kind of perspective.
Film Critic Lance Goldenberg can be reached at lgoldenb@tampabay.rr.com or 813-248-8888 ext. 157.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2003.