Out of Africa: 1985

Out of Africa was another epic, at least what I'm calling an epic, with a run time of 2 hours 41 minutes. It's so odd to me that this film won the year before Platoon because they are incredibly different. That's happened before with this blog, where I've gone from one year to the next and though, "How are these two movies on the same list?" But I guess that's the beauty of watching the Best Picture winners. Or that could explain why I'm often confused with what wins.

Regardless, Out of Africa was a good film but nothing that I would tell people they have to see. The film is based on the true story of Karen Blixen (played by Meryl Streep), a Danish woman who marries her friend, mainly to gain the title of baroness, and moves to Africa to run a farm. Originally, the farm was to be a dairy farm but her idiot husband had other ideas: he made it a coffee farm that was destined to fail. And it did. While her attempts to make the farm successful and to work with the local tribe that live on her land are interesting, the plot is actually a romance. Karen's marriage fails when her husband cheats on her, repeatedly, and when she meets Denys (played by Robert Redford).

Although I think the film was marketed as a romance about Karen and Denys, the film is more about Karen and her determination. The other white settlers, mainly British, view her as odd. She's too independent for a woman in the WWI-era, and they see her kindness and interest in the tribal people as inappropriate. I was interested in how the characters talked about the land. The British said the land belonged to the Crown (England), but Karen was brave enough to remind them that the land didn't belong to white people at all: it belonged to the natives who were there first. At one point, she has to fight to find land for the natives on her farm. She has enough faults that this noble act doesn't make the story saccharine, but it certainly makes me admire her even more than I did as I watched her life on the farm develop.

So I guess when I think about this film, I can honestly say I liked it. The cinematography included some beautiful shots of the savanna and animals. The characters were interesting, and the story had some depth. But even with this, I wouldn't say that the film excited me.