By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Caroline Link
Starring: Juliane Köhler | Karoline Eckertz | Lea Kurka | Matthias Habich | Merab Ninidze | Regine Zimmermann | Sidede Onyulo
Original language title: Nirgendwo in Afrika
Country: germany
Year: 2003
Running time: 140
IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0161860
Michael says: “NOWHERE IN AFRICA is a true epic, telling the tale of a Jewish family’s flight from Nazi occupied Germany to Africa. Walter Redlich travels to a farm in Africa to prepare the way for his wife and daughter. He instantly feels a connection with the continent, but when his wife Jettel arrives, she is unsettled and refuses to think of the new, hot, dusty farm as her home. Daughter Käthe befriends the family’s African contact and instantly becomes immersed in the African way-of-life.
“Naturally, there is a sweeping arc of drama that involves imprisonment of Jews, a near breakdown of a marriage, and a plague of locusts, but the focus of the film is always on the people, whether on Käthe’s adolesence, Walter’s frustration with his position, Jettel’s internal coming to terms with her new home or the couple’s erotic sexual reconciliations. Juliane Köhler is magnificent as Jettel, channeling the much-missed Emma Thompson in a strong and believable portrait of a woman thrown into an impossible
situation. This film just won the Best Foreign Film Academy Award.” 4 1/2 cats