Watch Nowhere in Africa For Free

Excellent but underrated film

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Blistering performances.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Jettel: I'm afraid of those people, not you? The movie, based on Jettel daughter Reginas book with the same title and screened November 11 2013 by Stockholms Goetheinstituts film club. Not all Jews translated early the German brown years signals. Those who could afford it financially or with their will to find ways and means to leave Germany: they did it. Some early, some later and some, as Walter Redlichs upper-class wife with her daughter the last minute; leaving behind the parents. His father believed: this will be over after at least two years. But Walter saw the signals early, leaving Germany for Kenya. For Jettel, used to upper class life the adjustment to her new life is difficult. Instead a refrigerator, she buys a ballroom gown. She wants to return to Germany. But her husband, knowing what is going on in Germany, tells her that she is lucky to have her life. For his and her parents it meant Auschwitz. Realizing the truth she accepts Nowhere and fills it with meaning. More than her husband, asked 1948 to return and be a judge. Now it is she who wants to stay. By own strength and struggle she formed their new life. The marriage is shaky and the reason that other men fill the gap: the neighbor Suesskind and the English officer, offering his help when she and if ... Afterwards it will be criticized. Times of no-where ("Nowhere" in the literary sense can mean "utopia", no- or good place) forces decisions that in normal times never should be an issue to discuss. They have their own law. For their daughter everything is an adventure. Quickly she adjusts, getting friends. Especially the friendship with the cook Owuor who tells the white Jettel: "I'm a cook. Cooks don't dig in the ground and men don't carry water." Jettel tells him, if he wants to speak to her, he must speak German. German she is, does exactly what the Germans did to her before the move to Kenya. But the cook accepts and carries water, laughed at by the others. Eventually Jettel learns by her mistakes to do better. Learns what tolerance is and should not be.The fugitives where outsiders: white, Germans and - Jews. 1948 is Walter offered to return to Germany as judge in Frankfurt. He tells his daughter and his wife answers: "I am afraid of those people, not you?" Yes, he answers but he wants to be in the front line with the others to give Germany a fresh chance. For Jettel, the new country accepted by trial and error: she has to return to Germany. This country that send his and her husbands parents to Auschwitz. Even them if they had stayed. Her daughter asks why the Jews are so different: "Mother, why are the Jews hated? I mean. You and father are not really Jewish." The mother answers that they never felt Jewish, as aunt Käthe. They where more German as the Germans, seeing for tea their friends at Café Mohnheim in Breslau. Tolerance. What Jettel has learned in Kenya: differences are important: "Tolerance doesn't mean that everyone is the same. That'd be stupid. What I've learned here is how valuable differences are. Differences are good. And intelligent people will never hold it against you." Walters accepts the return to Germany: giving Germany a new chance. He is one of many (when it was clear that Germany looses the war the re-educational movies where USA-prepared). 2001, the same year the movie was screened, it was clear that the Germans had not taken their chance (perhaps one, but two are still Nazis, as Jettel says, and three still want 'Lebensraum', using their German 'Ton'). The female director wrote the script as a reminder, using Reginas book.

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.