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8/19/04:
Review of 'Nowhere in Africa' by Tom Ryan

Just last night I watched this film produced in Germany entitled "Nowhere in Africa" with English subtitles. It is another case of a very good movie spoiled by a ludicrous ending in the last 5 minutes. Much like 'The Last Samurai" which I also considered to be a decent movie ruined by an ending so out of context it makes one wonder what the hell is going on. I see this happen often and attribute it to studios and producers unwilling to accept anything but a socially correct ending to a film. Which makes it a fertile ground to see what is being considered socially acceptable to the studios, or in your case 'false beliefs'.

'Nowhere' is a story about a Jewish family who escapes Germany just before the invasion of Poland. The husband goes to Kenya to work to help Jews escape from Germany. They end up in Kenya as poor tenant farmers. At first the wife, who is a socialite, and who spends her last money in Germany on expensive dresses, while forgetting to bring the essential camping gear requested by the husband, hates her new 'poor' life in the bush. But as time unfolds we find that she is the strong one and it is actually the husband who is weak. For example, once the war starts, it is the wife who struggles to find a way to get them out of the British internment camp, who plants the garden, who sets up the house, who gets things running.

Throughout the movie we have this opposition between the lazy former lawyer husband, who seems only interested in social justice, and the wife, who is interested in making her own life better thru work and profit. He goes off to war, she stays at the farm and takes up the job of running the place, does a better job than him. Then he returns from the war and wants to return to Germany to do social work. She, who has fallen in love with Kenya and the people and the farm refuses to go back. She has thru her own hard work made something for herself and her family. Then just as we think the movie is going to end with their separation, she has this inexplicable U-turn and decides to give up all she has worked for to follow him back in support of his social cause again. The U-turn is so sudden it leaves one with the impression that the original ending must have been politically incorrect in Germany because the change is so out of character right at the end. I guess not pc to work for profit for oneself or to put that above the social cause.

Almost the entire way thru this movie I am thinking to myself what a wonderfully uplifting movie with a strong female lead for my daughter to someday see (there is some sex which is why it is R rated) but then the ending is so bizarre and misogynist that I was left shaking my head.