Home is where the heart is. But what if you don’t know where your heart is? Or what if the heart falls in love with a new place – Does it become home then? Caroline Link’s Nowhere in Africa is a journey of hearts as they first struggle to get over their homes, and later, fall in love with their adopted home - an alien country of semi-clad men and women, mystifying customs, different languages and personal conflicts… A country that they seek refuge in, driven away from their home land to hold on their most valuable possessions – their lives. A country they initially detest, but soon fall in love with, like a forsaken child who has found a loving mother most unexpectedly.
The film opens with a beautiful panoramic shot of a child cycling through the vast, barren lands of Kenya, and switches to a scene where a man Walter Redlich is sweating profusely and shivering with fever. Walter has left his mother country, Germany, and taken shelter in Africa, disturbed by the sequence of events leading to Hitler’s rise and ultimately, World War 2. It seems like he’s done the right thing by leaving as he should be worried – He is a Jew and a German to boot. On his insistence, his wife Jettel and daughter Regina, hitherto in Germany, prepare to leave Germany to unite with Walter, leaving behind their valuable paraphernalia, and their loving families who don’t share Walter’s point of view and decide to stay back.
Upon their arrival, Walter and Regina seem to be doing fine even in abject penury – Walter manages a small farm and earns very little. Regina finds a confidante and a friend in their cook Owour – a lanky, African man with a heart of gold, and a head of a sage. Owour becomes a second father to Regina, playing games with her, teaching her about the local culture, customs, and language (that she eagerly absorbs) and giving her good advice when she needs it. Jettel on the other hand, cannot stand it. Not only has she given up her expensive crystal crockery, ice clad mountains, and the long talks with her mother and sister, she has to call this boiling hell of black folks, dirty water, unpalatable food and a strange language, home. No wonder, frustration leads to rage and misery, and constant fights with Walter ensue.
As their marriage takes a hit, war breaks out in Europe, and the three are sent to a British camp (not a prison), where men and women are separated, but live lavishly. Fed up with the arrangement, Jettel drops her knickers for an interested colonel who promises to get them out of there in return and get Walter a job so the family can be together. They get their life back, but marriage is strained further by Walter’s decision to join the army. Regina joins a school nearby and comes home during vacations at harvest time. Walter leaves sans Jettel, and a chasm develops between them, as he decides to move back to Germany after the war is over. Jettel, who has developed a strong attachment to her new home, refuses initially but then gives in stating that he should “only make decisions for them if he loves her,” which he eventually does.
Nowhere in Africa is about a lot of things - estrangement from one’s home country, growing up, companionship, alienation, love, sacrifice – but one thing that it highlights is the evolution of different characters in the face of vicissitudes that become the catalysts of growth or deterioration. In the beginning, Jettel hates Africa with an intensity she reserves perhaps only for Nazis while Walter demonstrates an inexplicable attachment to it. Over time, she finds herself drawn to Africa, while Walter grows more detached and finally decides to go back to his roots. Not only does their attitude towards their host country take a 180 degree turn, their own relationship that seems intense in the beginning, begins to fall prey to their changing behavior and ideologies. At one point they seem to fall in and out of love with each other like infatuated teenagers. Walter’s father tells Jettel before she leaves for Africa, “There’s always one who loves more. The one who loves more is also more vulnerable.” One isn’t quite sure who is the more vulnerable of the two – they seem to swap roles.
Jettel’s metamorphosis seems almost inevitable – unacceptance of the riches-to-rags transformation (In a scene she is asked by Walter to bring a refrigerator from Germany, but she ends up getting an expensive and useless gown along with some expensive crockery), long lapses of inaccessibility, harsh realities of a third-world country and a constant concern for the loved ones back home are symptomatic of a gradual change within her. Her infatuation for Susskind (Walter’s friend and another German Jew taking refuge in Africa), condescending attitude towards the Africans, and a volatile relationship with Walter reflect her own conflicts that lead to that change in her. On the other hand, Walter, who appears to be more composed of the two in the beginning, becomes more aggressive as time passes by – perhaps its Jettel’s forced adultery, their destitution or the growing distance between him and everyone around that lead to the change. When Jettel argues with him about his unreasonable desire to go back to a country where it will never be the same again for them, he retorts, “I am proud to be an idealist because it shows I believe in mankind. That may seem naïve, but every other belief will lead to destruction. This country saved our lives but it isn’t our country. ” This reflects his growing frustration in a country he considers a sanctuary, but not home.
If we look for any stability of character, then we find it in the most unlikely people – their Mzungu child, Regina and her best friend and their family cook, Owour. Regina is perhaps the most level headed of them all – she embraces the people with open arms, considers Africa her own land, speaks its tongue impeccably and transcends the boundaries of race and color with an ease only a child could exhibit. (I should perhaps add here that it is she who narrates the story as an adult.) Her relationship with Owour, their cook, is perfect like a child’s with his/her nanny’s. She suffers mild racism in school (comments like “Will the Jewish students move to the side please? So we can say the lords prayer? Is it some kind of Jewish habit to talk about money all the time?” crop up from time to time) but it doesn’t make her bitter for two simple reasons – She is an optimistic child who has a very mature head on her shoulders, and she has Owour as a mentor. Owour is the anchor for them all – he may be inconspicuous in the movie, but his tender, unquestioning, and patient love is the only thing that keeps them all intact mentally and emotionally.
Walter’s decision to head back leads to a lot of conflicts for and between all of them – especially Jettel and Regina, but love ultimately triumphs and they become a family again. They bond as a family when locusts threaten to ruin their harvest, and act as a family when it’s time to leave. They may have been nowhere in Africa , but they rediscovered themselves there for sure.
The movie’s cinematography is going to make the most fastidious of critics pleased. The short abrupt scenes may seem out of place, but they add a certain charm to the film. The last parting shot of an African woman’s hand lingering on Jettel is heart-warming to say the least. In a swift moment it depicts the bond formed over years – a bond between two residents of a country, one born there and another having a rebirth there.
Nowhere in Africa isn’t guaranteed to make you empathize with the characters, but it does make you wonder how and why people change, and it does so rather emphatically. It is a vicarious experience for someone like me, who practically got transported to a land called Africa, and into the minds of three characters struggling to find what they are looking for. It gives me hope because it tells me that struggle doesn’t matter, what it culminates in, does. It is a strong lesson in reality and it must be – It is based on Stefanie Zweig's autobiographical novel by the same name.
