Sydney Pollack’s production of Out of Africa, based on the book and life of Karen Blixen is one of both awe and limited perspective. Starting off the story in Denmark in 1914, the main character Karen von-Blixen Finecke is a stereotypical white baroness who cannot seem to find a place in her society as a woman and dreams of the exotic. By moving to a farm in Kenya, which later becomes a coffee plantation, she believes she is taking herself away from the troubles of European society and entering a place of wonder and paradise where she can live peacefully with nature. This, I believe is one of the big ways that the movie stopped short in portraying an accurate view of Kenya. Although there was much war and conflict in Kenya within the movie, the plot does not include a lot of realistic views of how the war affected the characters in the movie, giving the setting a sense of serene war which was obviously not true. The viewer sees little or no signs of any kind of conflict that affected either the Europeans or the people native to the land. Although war is spoken of and the viewer is shown the camp base where Karen’s husband is, there is no actual fighting occurring. Throughout the movie Karen encounters almost exclusively stereotypical pieces of Africa including topless women, wild lions, tribal chiefs, white safari guides, rich white Europeans and vast plains of “the wild.” Although the animals shown in the movie were native to the area Karen lived, the film gives an extremely limited view of Africa as a whole. For example when Denys Finch-Hatton takes her on the plane ride over vast plains filled with animals and views untouched by humans, the viewer is shown the classic National Geographic image of Africa. The movie also portrays the tribe who work for Karen and who live on “her land” as in need of the whites for work and education; throughout the movie Karen slowly understands that the tribe has their own way of life and does not need European education. This image of the functional independent tribe however is turned around when the coffee plantation burns down and Karen’s paradise world falls apart the tribe’s livelihood burns down with it, enhancing a sense of the dependence on whites. Further, at the end of the movie Karen is begging for the white man’s help in order for the tribe to have land to live on. The movie as a whole focuses on the perspective of Karen, the talented story-teller and gives the limited view of those native to Kenya, showing only how the natives interact with Europeans rather than an accurate portrayal of life in Africa.
I agree, the audience is not given a full understanding of life in Kenya. We are instead only shown a limited view given from the Baroness. Throughout most of the movie, she is so caught up in the luxuries that she doesn’t see or understand what Africa is. There are many stereotypic representations of both the individuals and the land of Africa that shape the views of the audience. The audience’s understanding is based heavily on the understandings of the Baroness. This one-sided idea of Africa does not allow us to see the true Africa.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. The audience only gets the Baroness's point of view, which is of an exotic Africa, or Kenya in this particular case. The movie shows how the Europeans want to live in Africa without actually living in Africa. Despite the fact that they are living in Kenya, they keep their European life style. And they have no interested in the country or the people from there other than land and workforce for their plantations and farms. The Africa they are willing to explore is on the landscape and the wild animals: the exotic.
ReplyDeleteOne interesting point of the movie is when they talk about how the border between Kenya and Tanzania was defined by Europeans fighting for the Mount Kilimanjaro. This is one example of what we talked about in class, on how the Europeans decided how the continent should be divided, caring solely for their own interests.