Out Of Africa

Still on medical leave and reeling from bouts of cough and flu, I spent half the day reading and watching another classic - one that sits in comfortably as one of my all-time favourite: Out Of Africa, starring the mega-talented Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.

I first fell in love with Meryl Streep when I saw her in Sophie's Choice. It is unfortnate that in recent years, her role choices have been questionable. Yet, she remains under-rated for the talent which she has. You must watch Sophie's Choice to understand.

"I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills..."

Thus begins the story of a farm that the narrator once owned near Nairobi, Kenya in the twilight years of European colonialism. The book describes events during 1914–1931 concerning European settlers and the native people in the bush country of Kenya (British East Africa), from seaside Mombasa to Nairobi, from Mount Kenya to Kilimanjaro, as told from the lyrical, poetic viewpoint of Danish Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke. The book was continually in print during the 20th Century, reprinted by many publishers.

The farm sits at an altitude of six thousand feet, the farm grows coffee, although only part of its six thousand acres (24 km²) is used for agriculture. The remaining parts of the land are forest and space for the natives - most of whom are from the Kikuyu tribe. In exchange for living on the farm, they work on it a certain number of days per year. There are many other tribal Africans nearby, including the Masai and Somalis such as Farah, the chief servant who helps the narrator run the entire farm. So you can imagine the vast beauty in the cinematography of this film.

The film itself opens in Denmark as an older Karen Blixen (Streep) briefly remembers hunting in Denmark, then the years she spent in Africa (1914–1931). Looming large in her memory is the figure of Denys Finch Hatton (Redford), a local big-game hunter she met when she arrived in Africa to start what she thought would be a dairy farm together with her husband, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke (Brandauer).

Things turn out differently for her than anticipated, as the blue-blooded but poor Baron has used her money to purchase a coffee plantation instead of a dairy farm. He also shows little inclination to put any work into it, preferring to hunt game instead. While from the beginning, their marriage is depicted as mostly symbiotic (her family has money, while the Baron has a title), Karen does eventually develop feelings for him and is distressed when she learns of his affairs.

To make matters worse, she contracts syphilis from her philandering husband, which at the time was a very dangerous condition, necessitating her return to Denmark for a possible cure.

After she has recovered and returned to Africa, a relationship between her and Denys begins to develop. However, after many unsuccessful attempts at turning their affair into a lasting relationship, she realizes that Denys is as impossible to own or tame as Africa itself.

Karen lives surrounded by fine European furniture and opens a school to teach European reading and customs to the native people, whereas Denys prefers the freedom of the outdoors and leaves the natives to their own customs. His eventual death in a plane crash is foreshadowed in the movie by the tale of Maasai people who would perish in captivity. At his funeral in the Ngong Hills, as Karen prepares to toss a handful of soil into the grave, she hesitates, then turns away from the other Europeans, brushing her hand instead through her hair, in the native custom.

In the film Karen is forced to return to Denmark, following a catastrophic fire that destroys her entire crop of coffee. After more than 20 years, Karen has become an author, a storyteller, writing about her experiences and letters from Africa, and still remembering.

The epitath on Denys Finch Hatton's tomb reads this beautiful poem:

"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

... The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge