NOWHERE IN AFRICA

Director: Caroline Link (modest German film/TV career)
Starring: Juliane Kohler, Merab Ninidze, Mathias Habich

This film is right up there with the best German films I've ever seen. Okay, okay, I've probably seen no more the than 4 or 5 German productions. Regardless, this movie definitely had its moments. The first hour and a half was a wonderful journey following a Jewish family (father, mother and child) fleeing Nazi Germany for a white-owened farm in Kenya. It had all of the elements for an exciting human adventure. We meet wonderful locals that are all full of love and wisdom. I'll never understand the (strangely common) notion that backward peoples are somehow embued with a great wisdom that the rest of us are missing and should desparately desire - but what are you going to do? It's a rampant (and oddly conflicting) philosophy in many liberals, like screenplay authors. Anyway, whether true or false, it's fine for the purposes of this story. No, my complaint with this movie lies in its inability to end. This movie ran at least 20 minutes too long - and painfully so. There were scenes that simply should have been rewritten and combined with others to move the story to it's conclusion. This inability to conclude was so specific that it really affected this viewer's enjoyment of the film. With all parts nicely weighed, however ...

Standouts: Engrossing, enjoyable humanist adventure tale for the first two thirds.
Blowouts: Plodding, awkward, somewhat annoying final third.

Grade: B