By Cynthia Citron   

Viewing the new film, Nowhere in Africa was, for me, a very poignant and emotional experience.  In another life I spent seven years in Africa, and I always thought that Kenya was one of the most beautiful countries on earth.  It shimmers in a golden light that falls in chunks so palpable you can almost reach out and catch them.  Director Caroline Link captures that beauty so exquisitely that at times I found it physically painful to watch.

Nowhere in Africa deals with the timely escape of a wealthy, highly sophisticated Jewish family, the Redlichs, from Nazi Germany to, literally, the middle of nowhere.  The husband, Walter, a handsome and humorlessly intense lawyer (Merab Ninidze), is first seen recovering from a bout of malaria.  He has gone ahead to find work as a tenant farmer in Kenya and he tackles the project with a grim, Germanic determination.

His wife Jettel (Juliane Kohler) a beautiful, pampered naif, joins him for what she thinks will be a brief respite, accompanied by a full set of Rosenthal china and an expensive new evening gown.  And by an adorable, adaptable little girl, played at different ages by Karoline Eckertz and Lea Kurka, who look so much alike that the transition between them is virtually seamless.  It is the girl's story, as told in the autobiographical novel by Stefanie Zweig, that fuels the film.

The little girl, Regina, takes to the new environment at once and it is through her that the essence of Africa is most poignantly felt.  In contrast, her mother comments, "It's beautiful.  But you can't live here!"

But live there they do.  Through drought, plagues of locusts, local anti-Semitism, and the war.  Walter, aching to do something, goes to Nairobi to join the British Army, while Jettel looks after the farm and works in the fields with a troop of hired hands.  She, in turn, is looked after by a gorgeous German ex-patriot, Matthias Habich, and a stalwart Kenyan houseman and cook, Sidede Onyulo.  Meanwhile, the Holocaust destroys Germany and the families they left behind.  But it's all a distant echo when you're trying to survive in a country as removed as Kenya.

As the long, leisurely tale unwinds over a decade, it explores a variety of themes. The volatile and ever-changing relationship between husband and wife.  The understanding and respect that grows between peoples of very different cultures. The question of the circumstances that would motivate a very private man, whose personal life is barely hinted at, to spend long years of selfless service anticipating the desires of his European employers.  And, especially, the unique temperament and mind-set of the permanent ex-patriot.

In the end, in Nowhere in Africa, it is the wife, transformed, who doesn't want to leave. And the husband, who has aged but not grown up, who does.

But in the end, most ex-patriots go home.  I did.  And so do the Redlichs.  For better or worse.