Product: Nowhere in Africa (2003)
Rating: 4.0
Judge a film by the company it keeps
You can judge a film by the company it keeps, and amazon's always spot-on recommending technology tells me that fans of 'Nowhere in Africa' are also interested in the following current releases: Hotel Rwanda; A Very Long Engagement; Bad Education; and Million Dollar Baby. Since I've seen and am enthusiatic about each of those, I'd like to suggest that fans of any of those films check out 'Nowhere in Africa,' which is richly deserving of its 2002 Academy Award for best foreign language film.Pay no attention to other critiques on this page about needing to understand German, or about not being able to understand the subtleties of the dialogue because it's not in English. That's hogwash. The subtitles here are excellent, as is the acting, most notably by Juliane Köhler and Merab Ninidze as lead protagonists Jettel and Walter Redlich. These are great actors who skillfully portray every nuance of their actions and feelings in a way that transcends any language barrier.My only complaint is that director Caroline Link could have been a bit more judcious about the editing process. At 2 hours 21 minutes, the film feels about 15 minutes too long and drags at stretches. That's a small quibble in the face of the overall quality of this production.