Nowhere in Africa

Nowhere in Africa won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and that is understandable, for the film has the qualities that Academy members prefer: it is a well-acted, conventional drama with beautiful, at times magnificent visuals, and on top of that it is entirely politically correct. That the film is a little too long and a little too rambling in its structure has mattered less in the choice.

The story begins in the 1930s, when a small Jewish family consisting of father, mother and daughter choose to leave their privileged existence in Nazi Germany while there is still time. The father, Walter, gives up his post as a judge to become a farmer in Kenya. The mother, Jettel, who is used to holding large parties and having servants at her beck and call, finds it hard, to put it mildly, to adjust to the primitive life. The daughter Regina, on the other hand, thrives and quickly becomes friends with the family's Kenyan cook Owuor.

Even though the family has now escaped Germany, their tribulations are by no means over. The marriage between Jettel and Walter creaks, nature time and again shows its capricious side, and as if that were not enough, the family is interned by the British authorities in Kenya when the Second World War breaks out. Things could have looked bleak had it not been for Jettel, who undergoes a dramatic transformation from spoilt upper-class madam to resourceful and quick-witted farmer's wife.