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 20th 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.