Could there be a more memorable, more exquisitely beautiful opening to a film than: “I had a farm in Africa…I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills…” with a haunting echo of sadness over the word ‘Arfrica’, delicately whispered by the comfortably familiar melodious tone of Meryl Streep plausibly delivering a soft Danish accent? Before one minute has passed we have already been treated to an array of cinematic riches including the music of Mozart gently rising from a safari scene, aerial footage of a biplane and a steam-powered locomotive gliding above and across the lush plains of Africa. Before two minutes are up we move from a snowy, wintry Denmark to a dusty, colonial Kenya in the 20^th century.

We already know this woman will leave Africa, we know she is haunted, that she is heartbroken. Once the words ‘Sydney Pollack’ appear on the screen we can be certain that the film unravelling before us will be nothing short of a romantic epic perhaps equal only to The English Patient or Gone With The Wind. The unromantics of the world need not venture beyond a minute, they will gain nothing from the approaching feast of film almost three hours long. The opening section, with credits rolling and an evocative score by John Barry slowly gathering pace against the stirrings of sorrow, has already sealed the fate of the viewer and the status of the film itself. Words falter, description fails, we are now captivated, lost….somewhere in Africa.

A beautiful film is a piece of art that has the power to change you forever, be it through influence, information, or pure inspiration. This film wins out to the latter, for what Venice does to the traveller, Out of Africa does to the film lover. It moves, stirs, enchants. Such films transport us to other worlds, other times. Just as imagination creates the story for the reader of a book, so too in films we bring with us a narrative, we bring with us our own lives, dreams, torments and truths. Once introduced to Karen we will either empathise with her or else turn away. Dreamers will empathise. Those who have known exile from a country, society or even the self, will empathise. Those who yearn for adventure in foreign lands, those who can’t help but romanticise the world, will empathise.

Released in 1985 and inspired by the life and autobiography of Isak Dinesan; the film won 28 awards including seven academy awards, testament to the fact that films of this grandeur are not made every day. Interestingly though, on certain film review websites the film has scored remarkably low, citing ‘excessive length and glacial pace’. I for one, once submerged in a film of such grace and beauty, would want it to go on forever. Such contrasts in experience, taste and perception also bring into focus that precarious line between entertainment and art. Without delving into excessive diatribes upon modern day cinema and filmgoers, too often today artistry is side-lined to immediate dramatic impact and thrill; the slow, soft focus, dreamy subtlety of sweeping epics are considered boring or overly sentimental. But there is nothing dull or sentimental about romantic love, especially when it ends, as it so often does, in tragedy. Love, for many, is the pinnacle of all human experience, the peak of pleasure and so too of pain. Out of Africa, like my all-time favourite film The Bridges of Madison County (also starring Meryl Streep), raises the eternal question of whether, in the words of Tennyson, it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

Still less than three minutes into the film we arrive in Kenya. The steam train moves from sunlight to shadow. The train stops. It is morning, it is hot, the African sun is bright. Carrying enormous tusks of ivory we are soon presented with Robert Redford, and a Robert Redford we recognise: laconic, dashing, seemingly an outsider leading an unconventional life on the margins of society. The story begins from the very beginning, and thus we begin our own cinematographic journey into one of the most beautiful films of all time….a saga that carries us ever so gracefully into Out of Africa.

“ The gorgeousness and wonderful reality of Venice is beyond the fancy of the wildest dreamer. Opium couldn’t build such a place, and enchantment couldn’t shadow it forth in a vision. Venice is above, beyond, out of all reach of coming near the imagination of a man. It has never been rated high enough. It is a thing you would shed tears to see.”

(Charles Dickens)

 

Lovers cannot compete with the beauty of Venice. I learned this early on having explored the city at various times over the course of my life with lovers both young and old. La Serenissima, humanity’s defining masterpiece, is the ultimate distraction from romantic love. Yet still lovers flock there as though in pilgrimage, as though being in Venice and in love will somehow elevate them, magnify their tender affections, transform sensual sentiment into something loftier, more profound, otherworldly. More often in Venice I have quarrelled with lovers than kissed. For Venice, drawn in exquisite watermarks upon the face of the earth is singularly unique, awakening in the mind a particular form of romanticised ardour. So herein lies the irony; despite its status as being the most romantic city in the world, when in Venice your only lover is Venice. From the very first encounter she leaves her mark upon you indelibly, multiple encounters merely deepen your affection, tie you to the city with both entangled dream-memories of her and new, fresh vision. Venice is a lover whose allure never wanes, whose loveliness never fades, a lover who will never leave, deceive, or disappoint.

To visit this Italian nonpareil is to experience an existential and intellectual climax. No other cityscape or man-made edifice can rival the brilliance of Venice. Her beauty is complete, thorough in its splendour, myriad in its sublime details, graceful as it is grand. No doubt part of its resplendence is the complete absence of the motor vehicle. As the world becomes ever more congested and polluted, Venice becomes even more a refuge from the absurd menaces of modernity. Daily battles fought against the onslaught of people, consumerism, capitalism, political misadventure, war, technological overload and noise, evaporate upon entering Venice. Through the slender streets, against the facade of palazzi and church and against the lap of aqua waters, footsteps echo, voices rise and fall, shadows stir. Timeless. The miracle of Venice is that she still exists, slipping from one century to another, despite the encroaching waters, despite the gradual subsidence. To experience Venice today is to step back into the past, to experience a living, breathing, delicately corroding history. When falling asleep within her walls the thick silence envelops you. A church bell may waken you or nearby shop shutters may pull you from dreams, but the lack of intrusion from the sound of cars makes being in a city in the 21st Century quite remarkable.

 “I wish I could give you an idea of the moonlight there, but that is impossible. Venice by moonlight is an enchanted city; the floods of silver light upon the moresco architecture, the perfect absence of all harsh sounds of carts and carriages, the never-ceasing music on the waters produced an effect on the mind which cannot be experienced, I am sure, in any other city in the world.” (Benjamin Disraeli)

Another notable difference which sets Venice apart is simply the scale. Many European cities have an old quarter where a particular area has been left unspoilt, left unscarred by the scourge of concrete, functional buildings and urban sprawl. Other countries may have their historic buildings intermingled with the new. Venice however, being solely navigable by foot or by boat, is entirely ‘as it was’ and feels never-ending. The statistics put this into perspective. The 177 canals separate the city into no less than 118 different islands linked by more than 400 bridges. This is dazzling and dizzying in equal measure. Venice is a labyrinth of fairy tale proportions. And this does not only apply to Venice per se, for the Venetian aesthetic extends to outer regions of the lagoon encompassing Murano, Burano and other hidden dominions such as Isola de San Michele, the island of the dead.

Without doubt the main draw of Venice beyond its history, beyond the art, canals, ornate bridges, picturesque vistas and absence of cars, is the magnificent architecture. Characterised by Venetian Gothic, Venice is a living fantasy of possibly the most elegant architectural styles ever created by man. Combining influences from a Byzantine and Moorish aesthetic and unifying them via a Latin Christian foundation, the result is nothing less than breathtaking. Situated in a lagoon and built atop a sunken forest of wooden piles made from alder trees, picturing what Venice looks like beneath the surface and reflecting upon its fragility and surreal genesis makes its existence all the more extraordinary. “There is no more magnificent absurdity than Venice. To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself; but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.” (Alexander Herzen)

Poets, writers, artists, musicians, philosophers – all have been captivated. No other place on earth can do what Venice does, can inspire like Venice inspires. Rome, Paris, Prague and Vienna, with their crowds, cars and little reminders of reality, fall dismally short. For Venice is a city of imagination and fantasy, experienced more in the mind’s eye and the oil painting than in the stark reality-jailer of the camera lens. The works of Canaletto are testament to this for many of his large vedute (known as capricci) depict a fabricated version of the city, with manipulated proportions, rearranged landscapes and fabled representation. He painted Venice partly how it was, partly how he dreamed it to be.

My own love of Venice began in the realm of image and imagination. As a child I had a few beloved books with quaint illustrations that conjured up the typical motifs of Venice: gondolas, arched windowpanes, shadowy palaces, caped and corseted buxom maidens and the pencilled silhouettes of menacing door knobs and mysterious carnival masks. I remember being fascinated by my friend’s large plastic gondola (which may have lit up) – tacky by today’s standards but intriguing for a child. Before I ever saw the city I was filled with thrill and excitement at the prospect of seeing it. It was always my dream destination until I finally went there as a university student, and then it became forevermore my destination of dreams. Since then I have visited Venice every few years and in all seasons. For a short period of time I taught English in the small towns of Rovigo and Bologna, where I would visit Venice on day trips by train, becoming familiar with her winding alleys and narrow canal paths. For me, there is nothing not to love about the city. Invariably criticism comes in the guise of a few choice adjectives:  overcrowded, touristy, expensive. In response I would say that despite the crowds flocking to the main sights and piazzas, despite the school parties, conflux of Asians taking selfies with selfie sticks and the unavoidable souvenir stalls, all one has to do is turn a corner, walk down a narrow alley, turn again, and you will find yourself both wonderfully lost and wonderfully alone. Very few tourists seem to stray from the main pathways, something I have never fully understood but have always delighted in. And yes, Venice is expensive, but perhaps rightly so.

One defining feature of Venice, hitherto unsaid, is the dramatic beauty of its slow, crumbling deterioration. Ruination, for me at least, has always been utterly romantic and the very height of refined, architectural splendour. It is a dying city. It is a city of death. Stagnant waters, stained walls fringed with moss and mould, broken plaster, peeling window shutters, eroding stone, the sinking, the flooding, the constant footfall  – all these things define Venice and only add to its grace, grandeur and singular exquisite atmosphere. Poets are reminded of mortality, painters, of time, dreamers, of reality, and lovers – lovers are made conscious of the inevitable passing of romantic love. To love Venice is to love decay. And herein lies another irony; that perhaps through such journeys into the imagination, through admiration of such ephemeral landscapes, through the aggrandisement of peeling plaster, things crumbling, through contemplation of the moribund and mystical visions that constitute Venice, we somehow embrace reality.

 

“You desire to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it and finally a soft sense of possession grows up and your visit becomes a perpetual love affair.”

 (Henry James)

 

Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee;

And was the safeguard of the west: the worth

Of Venice did not fall below her birth,

Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.

She was a maiden City, bright and free;

No guile seduced, no force could violate;

And, when she took unto herself a Mate,

She must espouse the everlasting Sea.

And what if she had seen those glories fade,

Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;

Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid

When her long life hath reached its final day:

Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade

Of that which once was great is passed away.

 

(William Wordsworth)