While World War II rages on the European continent, Walter Redlich and his wife Jettel and daughter Regina are safe from the conflict, tucked away on an isolated farm in Kenya.
But the circumstances that landed them in this foreign land and the challenges that awaited them when they arrived none of them could have predicted.
In "Nowhere in Afrca," we meet a Jewish family that fled Germany just before the infamous 1938 Night of Broken Glass and the closure of the Third Reich's borders.
Though the Nazi oppression they fled was severe, the harsh African landscape presents problems of its own. The former judge, Walter, submits to tending to a cattle farm. His daughter Regina begins to adapt to the local language and customs and takes affectionately to their African houseseservant, and the ever-pampered Jettel has the most difficult time adjusting. Despite her husband's urging, she smuggles the family china to this rustic landscape instead of packing a desperately needed refrigerator in her belongings.
While the three learn to adapt to their new surroundings, they hear often from home of the Nazi aggression, internment of their family, and then no more communication at all.
The relationship between Jettel and Walter unfolds in a particularly realistic way. At times they are quite romantic and at others, soberly candid. Jettel takes much time to accept her formerly well-to-do husband as a farm hand. For many years she fails to respect him or find him attractive.
Meanwhile Regina grows up in this new setting. After years at an English boarding school -- where she continues to face discrimination for her faith -- she can hardly remember what it was like her German home.
The title speaks of the sense of anonymity the family seeks as refugees in a foreign continent while expressing the isolation that the family feels in the new land and the emotional isolation that overshadows the love story.
This movie deserved the 2002 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
"Nowhere in Africa" leaves the viewer with a visually well constructed movie. Cinematographer Gernot Roll chose to film in Kenya and took every liberty to weave the spectactular natural background inot the fabric of the movie.
Director Caroline Link presents a heart-felt but honest portrayal of an ordinary family in extraordinary times. The turbulent relationship between husband and wife never crosses into sentimentality while young Regina's coming-of-age never panders to nostalgia in the movie-goer's heart.
