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Nowhere in Africa
Zeitgeist Films


8.8

based on 31 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 11 votes
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MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Juliane Köhler, Regine Zimmermann, Merab Ninidze, Matthias Habich, and Gabrielle Odinis

A love story spanning two continents, Nowhere in Africa is the extraordinary true tale of a Jewish family who flees the Nazi regime in 1938 for a remote farm in Kenya. (Zeitgeist Films)

GENRE(S):	Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Caroline Link Stefanie Zweig (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Caroline Link
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 30, 2003 Video: September 30, 2003 Theatrical: March 7, 2003
RUNNING TIME:	141 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Germany
LANGUAGE(S):	German (with English subtitles)

Original title "Nirgendwo in Afrika"; Nominated, Best Foreign Language Film, 75th Annual Academy Awards

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is so rare to find a film where you become quickly, simply absorbed in the story.

100

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Everywhere in Nowhere in Africa, skill and art translate into vivid life.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

This is an intelligent epic told without special pleading, a film able to cut deep enough to reveal a keen specificity of experience.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

The movie gives us lovingly shot landscapes, portraits of extraordinary friendships, a great score, dialogue that only occasionally slips into history lessons, a number of memorably etched minor characters, a splendid performance by its youngest star and two mysteries.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Enchanted and thrilling film.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The movie's strength is its refusal to offer easy answers.

USA Today Mike Clark

It's also as good as "Out of Africa."

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A lovely film with a deeply humane perspective.

Miami Herald Cary Darling

It has everything Oscar voters fall in love with: sweep, romance, accessibility and social conscience.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Consistently absorbing family saga is primarily a safari of the soul.

Newsweek David Ansen

This German movie, with its lush cinematography and lovely score, has the sturdiness of an old-fashioned Hollywood epic. What isn’t Hollywood is Link’s refusal to tell the audience how to feel at every moment.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

The movie's real strength lies in its intelligent, sympathetic account of the dynamic, difficult marriage of Regina's parents.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Thanks to the superior performances by all four leads (including incredibly expressive Karoline Eckertz, who appears as the teenage Regina midway through), Nowhere in Africa is a meditation on everything from race and class and cultural impermanence to the inexhaustible malleability of youth.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

If lush landscapes and exotic wildlife are what you're after, this isn't the safari for you. But many moviegoers will respond to its mixture of family drama and Holocaust-era history.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Writer-director Caroline Link (who did the Oscar-nominated "Beyond Silence") adapted Stefanie Zweig's expatriate memoir gracefully, languidly and with full understanding of its heroine.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Audience empathy for the displaced Redlichs, coupled with the filmmaker's proffered charms of wise natives and their mysterious rituals, goes a long way toward making this lyrical travelogue a crowd pleaser.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

This picture is absorbing -- and eye-filling -- whether the prose and the passion are connecting or running on parallel tracks.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Beautifully shot on location in Kenya and filled with touching, almost magical moments, Link's film has been nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Despite a shaky narrative focus and dramatic reticence, its journey is consistently absorbing.

Chicago Reader Bill Stamets

For the most part this is a scenic and well-scored Holocaust survival tale.

Variety Derek Elley

Easy on the eye and effortlessly entertaining across almost 2½ hours.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

This is a fictional film, but it is based on a novel by Stefanie Zweig that is autobiographical. The adaptation was done by the director Caroline Link, whose screenplay is serviceable and whose directing is generally sure.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Never quite escapes the Euro-centric blinders of its characters, but its engagement with their evolving sense of identity and story of empowerment and acceptance is nonetheless rousing.

Slate David Edelstein

There's something too refined and emotionally neutral about Nowhere in Africa, as if Link had directed with white gloves. Maybe she knew how loaded this African-Jewish subject was and didn't want it push it too hard. Maybe that's why she won an Oscar.

Washington Post Eve Zibart

What rescues the film is Gernot Roll's spare, almost aesthetic cinematography, and the quality of the acting.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Isn't really a dull film so much as an oddly quaint one that seems to find a comfortable perspective about drastic circumstances.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Schmaltzy and endless.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

With sumptuous widescreen photography and a pounding world-music score, the film makes for an absorbing travelogue at best, as pretty as a picture book and just as flat on the surface.

Village Voice Laura Sinagra

A straightforward epic, almost alarmingly quaint in the telling.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Though the story itself is undeniably fascinating, this somewhat prosaic account simply doesn't do it justice.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Sinks into melodrama.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Pat C. gave it a7:
This movie was cobbled together in annoying fashion. Jewish holocaust angst is set to African rhythms. European transplants are shocked to discover that the abundant savanna wildlife experiences terror as components of the local food chain. Yet the humanity of the characters is generally presented as neither righteously glorious nor naively shallow. Their interactions are unusually genuine, and this authenticity persists to elevate this photoplay as an undeniable cinematic achievement.

Glenn C. gave it a 9:
I thoroughly enjoyed a complex portrayal of triumph over human adversity, both external and self inflicted in this african setting.

Romy E. gave it a 9:
A fantastic film, well done.

Chad S. gave it a 7:
Knowledge of Doris Lessing's "The Grass is Singing" had to be suppressed in order for me to get through this movie. "Nowhere in Africa" accidentally recalls the novel in some early scenes involving Jettel and Owuwor. But the Kenyan transplant starts to accept the native population, and in one scene, to really hammer the point, Jettel tends to an abandoned old woman with tears in her eyes. Jettel isn't emminently likable and this scene feels grafted on as if the filmmakers were aware of this fact. "Nowhere in Africa" is utterly watchable, especially when the focus is on the Redlichs' daughter. The film likes to tantalize us with her budding sexuality within the proximity of two natives. Accepting fruit from a peddler is one thing, but what if Regina found love and happiness with a black boy? The screenplay protects Jettel. There are far worse ways to kill two hours, but "Nowhere in Africa" is a little dishonest to be truly successful.

SaintHarry gave it a 10:
One of my top 10 best films of 2003 and it well deserved a Best Foreign Film Oscar. Very powerful, a great cast especially Sidede Onyulo as Owuor. Beautifully filmed.

Stephen S. gave it a 7:
As I find one Juliane Kohler more appealing than two Meryl Streeps, I liked Nowhere in Africa more than Out of Africa. But, the LA Academy Award notwithstanding, I lean towards the reservations of the NY newspapers on this one. Caroline Link's longish drama of a German Jewish family exiled to Kenya in 1938 has about it a certain surface gloss and withholding of subversive sentiment, not unlike American Beauty (yes) or The Quiet American mark II. Rather than letting the power emerge naturally from telling combinations of script and camera, Link tends to urge effects on you via the Kenyan technicolour, lingering aerial shots or the musical score. At one point, upstanding lawyer Walter upbraids wife Jettel (Kohler) for her dismissive attitude towards the wise retainer Uwuor, implying that she invites comparisons with Nazi behaviour towards Jews. But, for the most part, Link leaves out colonialism, not to mention the Mau Mau mischief that was soon to shake Kenya. More interesting than Walter's uncertain marriage are the daughter Regina's relationships with Uwuor and the other locals, special mentions going to Lea Kurka (the child) and Karoline Eckertz (the teenager). The attractive, if not astringent, confection is worth seven points max to me. Very good for a night out or a 'date movie', but no great sin to wait for the video.

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Nowhere in Africa Zeitgeist Films

Nowhere in Africa
Zeitgeist Films