Film Review: Out of Africa

Director: Sydney Pollack

A hugely successful film from 1985 is a romantic drama which is loosely based on the autobiography of Karen Blixen, a Danish woman who moved to Kenya after a marriage of convenience and attempts to run a dairy business with her new husband but also meets another free-spirited man out there. Out of Africa won 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography.

Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) and Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford)

Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) realises after moving to Africa with Bror Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) that he intends to run a coffee plantation rather than a dairy farm and that it will take up to 4 years before they have any actual coffee they can sell. She also realises that he has little interest in the plantation and would rather hunt big game to shoot and sell at the markets. Despite this she does became infatuated with Bror but with his activities elsewhere and the First World War it becomes increasingly difficult for them to live together.

A well renowned film and arguably one of the most beautifully shot films to ever be made, the visuals of the plains of Kenya especially following the bi-plane later in the film are stunning. It is a film that is almost exclusively shot in Africa which helps to add to the authenticity of the experience even though the plot differs significantly in places from the book on Blixen's actual life. It does a good job of depicting life for Western settlers in Africa around the First World War as men clung to titles that they were bestowed and believed in the higher class aristocracy.

Bi-plane flying over a colony of Flamingos

Meryl Streep is excellent as Blixen in the lead but the best performance is for Redford whose the antithesis to the rest of the Europeans that live in Kenya at the time. He does need marriage (because a piece of paper won't make him love her more) and wants to move his stuff in but not himself, he still wants to be a free spirit and this is at odds with the rest of the characters within the movie which makes him a great character to watch. It's these subtle lines and moments that Redford produces which sadly show that this kind of clever writing is lacking in cinema these days.

I expected the social life of the Westerners to be examined more deeply and possibly even criticized but it was largely left untouched which is a shame, the length of the film certainly left it time to do so. The pacing of the film does make it quite a long film to sit through at over two and a half hours, it's certainly not in a rush to take you anywhere but with the breathtaking views it's not always a bad thing.

3/4 Stunning romantic drama