Out of Africa

Plot synopsis:
The story begins in 1913 in Denmark, when Karen Dinesen (a wealthy but unmarried woman) asks her friend Baron Bror Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) to enter into a marriage of convenience with her. Although Bror is a member of the aristocracy, he is no longer financially secure; therefore, he agrees to the marriage, and the two of them plan to move to Africa to begin a dairy farm.
Upon moving to British East Africa, Karen marries Bror in a brief ceremony, thus becoming Baroness Blixen. She meets and befriends various other colonial residents of the country, most of whom are British. She also meets Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford), a local big-game hunter with whom she develops a close friendship. However, things turn out differently from her expectations, since Bror has used her money to purchase a coffee plantation rather than a dairy farm. He also shows little inclination to put any real work into it, preferring instead to become a game hunter. Although theirs was a marriage of convenience, Karen does eventually develop feelings for Bror, but she is distressed when she learns of his extramarital affairs. To make matters worse, Karen contracts syphilis from her philandering husband (at the time, cures were uncertain) and is forced to return to Denmark for a long and difficult period of treatment using the then-new medicine Salvarsan. Bror agrees to look after the plantation in her absence.
After she has recovered and returns to Africa, the First World War is drawing to an end. However, it becomes clear that her marriage to the womanizing Bror has not changed, and she eventually asks him to move out of their house. No longer able to have children of her own due to the effects of the syphilis, she decides to open a school to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and also some European customs to the African tribal children of the area. However, her coffee plantation runs into financial difficulties, and she is forced to rely on bank loans to make ends meet. Her friendship with Denys Finch Hatton develops further.
Despite her expectation and desire to have what begins as an affair turn into a lasting relationship, Karen realizes that Denys is as impossible to domesticate as the wild animals he hunts and often refers to. Although he moves into Karen's house, he criticises her desire to "own" things; this implies even people. He refuses to commit to marriage or give up his free lifestyle and tells her that he will not love her more just because of a "piece of paper". Karen grudgingly continues in the relationship, knowing it will not ever be official. He decides to invite Felicity, a female mutual acquaintance on one of his safaris, which exceeds Karen's ability to tolerate his justifications for his lifestyle and behaviour. Karen asks him to accede to her request to not take her along, and he refuses. She asks him to move out. The plantation finally yields a good harvest at long last, but a devastating fire breaks out in the processing shed, and the crops and all of the factory equipment are destroyed.
Now financially broke, and her relationship with Denys over, Karen prepares to leave Africa to return home to Denmark, just as British East Africa is becoming Kenya Colony. She arranges to sell everything that she owns and empties the house of all her luxurious items for a rummage sale. In the now empty house, Denys visits her that night, and the two of them enjoy a drink and a dance. He asks her if he might escort her to Mombasa in his biplane to begin her journey home. She agrees and he promises to return after a few days. However, Denys never returns, and Karen is told that his plane has crashed and that he has been killed. Her loss now complete, Karen attends his funeral in the Ngong Hills. With Denys gone, Karen's head servant, Farah, takes her to the railway station, for the train to Mombasa.
Karen later became an author and a storyteller, writing about her experiences and letters in Africa, though she never returned there.

Tags: dramatic, romantic, storytelling

Review:
I said to my husband, "We've just seen the Academy Award winner." If I had no other basis for recommendation, I would say the breathtaking cinematography and transporting musical score would make a viewing worthwhile (case in point: the main theme playing as Denys Finch Hatton gives Karen Blixen her first airplane ride, and we what she sees, as God must have seen it).
Also, without an understanding of the historical times, it would be too easy to say simplistically that this is a woman trying to live within the terms of a marriage of convenience and then compensating with pursuit of a doomed passion.What was crafted out of a mishmash of a more-or-less factual account and director Sydney Pollack's vision is still a beautiful love and adventure story in the midst of British colonial rule and an earlier, more racially and sexually biased era.Klaus Maria Brandauer as Baron Bror von Blixen (whew!
"Bare-breasted native women" will unfortunately also make their National Geographic appearance.Even so, Out of Africa is a treasure with a half dozen or more perfect and unforgettable scenes; a movie as long as this review, but I hope you'll agree, worth your patience..
OUT OF AFRICA is based on the memoirs of Danish writer Karen Blixen (pen name, Isak Dinesen) in a coffee plantation in present day Kenya.
But the real attraction of the film is he outstanding photography of the African landscape together with the sweeping John Barry soundtrack that is probably the most beautiful movie soundtrack of the 1980s.
After viewing this film again I'm just stupefied why didn't Meryl Streep win Best Actress in this movie.
You see at it heart it is a well made, timeless epic.Yes there will always be the people who take exception to the accents, dislike the ending or believes it drags on for too long, but that's their lost, I can't help thinking they haven't been patient enough (and this annoys me).You see the thing is in many ways the endless beauty of this film lies in its subtleties.
Yes you have Meryl Streep and Redford flanked by the scenery and music, but for me it's the things like Pollock's direction, Michael Kitchen's performance and Karen's interaction with member's of the tribe that make the film.Part of me wants to tie my mate to a chair and make her sit and watch this until she gets it.
I find the romance between Dinesen (called by her real name, Baroness Karen Blixen) and aviator-adventurer Denis Finch-Hatton, less than compelling, partly because, as the latter, Robert Redford refuses to use a British accent, which gives the movie a Hollywood feel, not a bad thing in itself, but the film was made in Africa, with a mostly British cast, and Meryl Streep as Blixen uses an impeccable Danish accent, which makes Redford seem like a fish out of water.
It is loosely based on the memoirs of Danish aristocrat Karen Dinesen (Meryl Streep), whose failed social endeavors at home drove her to a platonic marriage to a Baron (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and to an eighteen-year exile in colonial Kenya.
The wide skies of Africa enlarged Dinesen's horizons, allowing her to explore the limits of her endurance through business venturing, friendship, and ultimately romance with wildlife hunter Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford).
Fine recitals by Streep (featuring a superb Nordic accent), and Michael Kitchen (as Berkeley) are not dynamic enough to conceal the film's fatal contradictions: Dinesen is a feminist spirit whose self-confidence is dependent on the men in her life; colonized Kenya is a sanitized paradise where noble savages' know their place; and where white colonialists are well-meaning philanthropists with imperfections that have hardly any impact outside of their narrow bwana' circle.
This film is filled with beautiful cinematography especially when it comes to landscape shots, great acting, and enough animals to easily satisfy a naturalist.This film is about a life of a woman when she moves from Denmark to Kenya in 1913 and her story of her time in Africa.The acting is very good especially by Streep and Redford.
I loved the movie on the big screen when it came out and even if the emphasis in the film is on the love life of Karen Blixen, which is not true in the book, it succeeds to convey the main purpose of Isak Dinesen to show the incredible beauty of Africa, specifically Kenya.
In Out of Africa, Meryl's character Karen is a hardworking, independent, strong-willed young baroness/plantation worker later author, while in The Iron Lady, she oscillates between an eighty year old dementia-suffering Thatcher and a middle-aged Thatcher, both authoritative.While I do understand Phyllida's attempt to have Meryl foreshadow others to show Thatcher's dominance, the movie itself became a one-woman show that barely gave a s*** about the supporting cast.
The Iron Lady will always remain Meryl's Iron Lady.Based on a true story, Out of Africa shows Karen Blixen's life as she adjusts to the African lifestyle while romancing Denys (Redford) and divorcing Bror (Klaus).
Karen runs the entire farm, opens up a school and acquaints and adjusts herself with the Africans.Pollack has handled the movie tactfully, and the film is enriched by fine performances.
Meryl Streep is a total wonder as the Danish woman who goes to Africa to find a life but learns about love instead.
John Barry's beautiful score is among the best in film history: a perfect melding of times past and wistfulness and love.
Gorgeous African vistas serve as a backdrop for the love story between Streep and Redford, playing real-life characters Isaak Dineson and Dennis Finch-Hatton.
Having watched this movie dozens of time it never ceases to amaze me how much there is in it...beauty, character, music, a way of life.
(For the full version of the music, stay with the ending credits.)In addition to a greater appreciation of the visuals and soundtrack, I enjoyed the story much more by the third time and Meryl Streep's Danish accent as "Karen Blixen" went from annoying to acceptable.
I even found I could enjoy this 161-minute film broken up into several viewings.One credibility problem, the other main character: " Denys," played by Robert Redford, was supposed to be British but had a 100 percent American accent.
Streep's character wasn't all that hot, either, and I'm wondering if the real Karen Blixen was more Christian-like than shown in this movie.
Character-wise, I liked Blixen's husband, played by Klaus Maria Brandauer, probably best in this movie.This is such a classy-looking film that I can overlook a few flaws and too-secular main characters and enjoy what the rest has to offer: mainly the magnificent African scenery, mellow story and rich music..
The film is based on Blixen's best-known book, telling the story of her life in Kenya, to which she and her husband Bror had moved to take up farming, between 1913 and the early 1930s.
The book also tells of Karen's relationship with the large white settler community in the colony, her divorce from Bror and her love affair with the big-game hunter Denys Finch Hatton.Although the real Finch Hatton was an English aristocrat, Robert Redford here plays him with an American accent, although he is never referred to as an American in the film and the audience is probably supposed to accept him as British; he takes part in British military operations in 1914, at a time when America was still neutral.
Although there are some big historical set pieces, such as the victory celebration at the end of World War One, the film is really as much about the African continent and its landscapes, wildlife and indigenous people- Karen befriends the local Kikuyu people who are patronised or neglected by the other Europeans- as it is about colonialism or about the story of Karen and Denys.Streep did not win "Best Actress"- she lost out to Geraldine Page- but the film received seven Academy Awards including "Best Picture", "Best Director" for Pollack and "Best Cinematography".
Another well deserved Oscar went to John Barry for "Best Original Score"; his famous theme tune sounds like the noble slow movement of some great romantic symphony and beautifully complements the mood of the film.
The stilted dialogue, the lack of action, Brandauer's indifference, Redford's wooden acting, the weak story line, the formulaic direction, and the excessive length of the picture trump what may have been an interesting autobiography written by a woman who moved to Kenya in the early 20th Century.
Lots of subtlety in the script and visual symbolism inadequately matched by Robert Redford's neutral performance giving the impression of a huge American film-star doing it by numbers, conspicuously super-imposed onto an otherwise convincing depiction of colonial Kenyan culture in the early twentieth century.
Director Sydney Pollack believed Redford gave the historic character he was portraying an unobtainable quality that couldn't be offered by any high-profile British actor at the time of filming (1984).
Especially the objects in Karen's house take on a symbolic life of their own, which tells a story to complement the main narrative.I'm not sure how central the romantic aspect of the film was supposed to be, but I find it secondary to the development of Blixen's character and her relationship with Africa.
Robert Redford, though a charming man at all times, doesn't interest me much, but each time I see the film, I fall in love with Streep's Karen again..
As Karen, Meryl Streep gives one of her most worthy performances, touched with beauty and great angst.
Meryl Streep provides a performance that is probably one of her best ever and Robert Redford assists in his portrayal as her love interest.
But, Streep maintains control of the entire movie with her wonderful portrayal of a woman who must make her way through a man's world while struggling to keep her farm and help the people she's come to love.
The scenery, especially the aerial views of Africa and the wonderful music make this movie one of my favorites of all time.
Even if we take the cynical approach and say that it's another white-person-goes-to-Africa story, you can't ignore the effort that Meryl Streep and Robert Redford put into their roles.
622 - Adagio - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjzf_cWzlp8 - I realized that director Sydney Pollack' s film Out of Africa, 1985 , which tells Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke (1885-1962)' s life is actually telling highly solid an admirable dream.
Direction was taken by the renowned Sydney Pollack, while Meryl Streep and Robert Redford gave life to the main characters.
Released in 1985 and directed by Sydney Pollack based on Karen Blixen's autobiographical novel, "Out of Africa" chronicles life in colonial Kenya during World War I where a Danish baroness establishes a coffee plantation with her husband-of-convenience, Bror (Klaus Maria Brandauer), and develops a relationship with a free-spirited big-game hunter, Denys (Robert Redford).For some reason it's become fashionable to look-down on "Out of Africa" but, viewing it recently, it's obvious why it won Best Picture at the AA.
Karen Dinesen (Meryl Streep) agrees to marry Baron Bror Blixen, more out of convenience than love.
Good story with superb performances (it is Robert Redford and Meryl Streep though, so one should expect that).
a film with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford could not be more than a good one.
In 20th-century colonial Kenya, a Danish baroness/plantation owner (Meryl Streep) has a passionate love affair with a free-spirited big-game hunter (Robert Redford).How accurate this is to reality, I have no idea.
On one hand, it's long and slow; on the other, it's an absorbing story with fantastic acting and breathtaking scenery.Meryl Streep stars as Karen Blixen, a Danish woman, who marries Bror Blixen and becomes a Baroness.
The cast includes Klaus Maria Brandauer, Michael Kitchen, Michael Gough, and Rachel Kempson, all wonderful actors.Meryl Streep does a beautiful job as Karen/Isak.
So many of us don't have a strong picture of Africa; this film displays its great beauty.Interestingly, the story of Isak Dinesen was considered for Greta Garbo, and Audrey Hepburn was offered the role before Streep..
However, despite the lengthy runtime, the movie does not get boring as the actors do a good job and it is interesting to see their characters get revealed and interacted with, and the two main characters played by Robert Redford and Meryl Streep show good chemistry together.
As you watch this movie you realise that this is a story about a white noblewoman from Denmark having love adventures in Africa, against the background of half-naked poor black servants, but the movie redeems itself to some degree by acknowledging the problem of colonialism in its story and dialogue and by making the main character fairly likable and hardworking.Another point of annoyance is Meryl's prominent friend played by Klaus Brandauer.
Robert Redford is just a very handsome man with great acting skills and Meryl Streeps acting is unbeatable, therefore she even won an Oscar as best-actress for the role she played.
Filmed on location in Kenya, "Out Of Africa," is one of the best films that I have ever watched.Based on the life of Danish female Author, Isak Dinessen,also known as "Karon Blixen," wrote many short stories, has some very good and breath taking scenery, such as those of the Flemingoes on Lake Naivasha, Mombasa and not to mention the Ngong Hills.Karen Blixen moves to Kenya, just before the out break of First World War. Upon arriving there she meets the hunter Denys Finch - Hatton but marries Baron Blixen, who has set up a Coffee farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills.Meryl Steep is superb in the role of Karen Blixen as is Robert Redford in the role of Denys Finch - Hatton.
We understand that life and love is a daily struggle, just like the wilderness of Africa.I wish more "Modern Day Classics" could be made for our next generations of movie enthusiast!
Robert Redford (Denys Finch Hatton) and Meryl Streep (Karen Blixen) are the perfect choice for the characters.
Meryl Streep and Robert Redford are beautiful, not just in the sense of glamor, but in the nature of the characters they portray, especially as they dance or share a moment of Mozart.
This movie is a true romantic classic; Meryl Streep and Robert Redford both do a superb job acting (as usual).
Karen sets out for Africa to marry Bror Blixen(Strangely enough that name means brother Flash in Danish, i thought she was off to marry her brother!)when she meets Denys (Robert Redford).
The film envelopes you, the scenery, Streep & Redford, the story and that Barry score - the finest orchestral music - I believe ever written.
Robert Redford really know's how to do film's,this is just breathtaking,think all the cast are superb,story is lovely,i can not watch this film ,even from the opening without crying,as the music is just amazing i try to compose myself to enjoy the film and i just can not stop,the costumes are just beautiful,would really like to know if Meryl enjoyed wearing them?i think they were lovely,the story is great and so romantic,the scenery in Africa,how people conducted themselves back then,and how sad when she left Africa,a must see film,in peace and quiet.Robert as usual is so handsome,and is so perfect for the part he play's as is Meryl she is a wonderful actress,and always's get's the accent's to her part so well,would like to know too if they enjoyed making the film?a must see film..
An incredibly beautiful film with flawless acting (especially by Meryl Streep), breathtaking cinematography, a moving musical score and a powerful script that is romantic, heartbreaking and poetic..
I was not familiar with the writings of Isak Dinesen before this film but, having seen the movie so many times, have become fascinated by her life and work.
Sure, it's got incredible performances by Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Klaus-Maria Brandauer.
To get the full picture, read all the books, including 'Isak Dinensen' the Life of a Storyteller' and 'Silence Shall Speak' to see what a clever interpretation the movie is of the whole story, not just the bits Karen wrote about in Out of Africa.
It is a moving story with fascinating and haunting characters, a beautifully filmed movie, and I loved it.
A 120-minute plot line that moves like Chicago at 5:00In a film that gives good Africa movies bad names ("The Constant Gardener," "The English Patient," etc.), Meryl Streep experiences a star-crossed love affair with Robert Redford.Interesting premise, poor execution.The time span feels as long as it is, as both Karen and Denys fumble toward intimacy.
In 1937, she wrote the biographical work "Out Of Africa".Sydney Pollack produced and directed this film adaptation of Blixen's life with the wonderful Meryl Streep as the Danish writer and Klaus Maria Brandauer as her husband and the handsome Robert Redford as her lover.
This is an excellent film of Sidney Pollack with acting of two greatest of the cinema, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.
The film steps at different time of the Blixen's life, her love for Denys Finch Hatton (Redford), her sickness, and her relationship with slaves.
Robert Redford is miscast as a British adventurer in Africa wooing married Danish writer Meryl Streep.
While the performances in "Out of Africa" are excellent (I'd expect nothing less from Meryl Streep and Robert Redford), they do not compare to those of Whoopie Goldberg, Danny Glover and the rest of the cast in "The Color Purple."Further, Sydney Pollack's direction is good, a tribute to his craft, but let's be real.
An Endearing Love Story on One Country and One Man. Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Klaus Maria Brandauer give a performance that brings spark and excitement in every move.
The film won a remarkable number of Oscars and other awards in 1986, including the prestigious Best Picture, but in retrospect the movie does not seem all that extraordinary.The story begins in Denmark where Karen (Meryl Streep) is reminiscing her years in Kenya in the early 20th century.