After listening to the director's speech on the shooting process of this film, I realized how much technology and thought there are in the scenes I saw. Looking at it now, this 80's film is a bit long, and today's popular films are much more compact than it. But the rhythm of a film is also a way of expression. In a film with heart, there is no soundtrack, a scene, or a dialogue without a reason and an expressive intention. They constitute the length of a film, if its rhythm the shape of the bones. Short or tall, elegant or rough, all match the story and theme. So looking back, the long journey out of Africa does not make people feel dull, but it helps the viewer to have a deeper understanding of the heroine's life in Africa. Such a length gives us more time to understand Africa. An ancient, magical and primitive continent.
In order to shoot in a more natural wild environment, the filmmakers worked hard to find lions, invite photographers who specialize in shooting wild animals, and use lights outside the window to create natural light in the room... The result of all this is the wildness on the screen. And gentle Africa, although the current technology is still ineffective, it is still moving, especially from the perspective of the hero and heroine on the plane, the migrating bison, the flocks of water birds, and Ngong small volcano, everything is revealing to us the face of Africa in a non-verbal way in a non-verbal way.
Likewise, the Out of Africa soundtrack and narration had such a quiet but powerful influence. The adapted novel itself has a poetic language. Karen's prototype recalls Africa in her old age, and uses plain but mellow words to give the whole story a sense of the vicissitudes of history and life. The director's choice of soundtrack, including the singing of some local African children, further expands the horizon on the screen.
I don't know what the theme of the original book was, but let's assume that the theme of the movie was refined by the directors and screenwriters. It appears in the second half of the film, paving the way without being obtrusive. Karen has a possessive desire for everything, perhaps because she was an older leftover girl, and this feeling of insecurity without possession always accompanied her, and because her husband contracted syphilis, she had lost the ability to reproduce. , These things all work in her subconscious, if the coffee farm is hers, the black people on the farm must live according to her European way, and the children must learn to read and write in English - this is the possessiveness of Africa. And for Dennis, she wanted marriage, she wanted him to belong to her, to belong to her. And finally, with a fire burning down her coffee workshop, she realized that everything in Africa was inevitable, and neither did he.
It can't be said that Karen's thinking is wrong, because when she wants to give herself completely, she must first make sure that the kind of effort will pay off, whether it's Africa's embrace or Dennis's. But this love is not so selfless.
And it was Dennis who was clearly not unselfish. This legendary figure lives unrestrained, and he won't let a marriage letter or a woman's relationship erode his freedom.
So conflict broke out. But the movie goes on to tell that both of them have changed for each other. Dennis said she had ruined his freedom and he didn't enjoy it as much; Karen was like a flood, let everything be, let go, and retreated.
Their separation is not simply stubbornness, mutual persecution, and mutual harm. Like Sanmao and her first love, the woman has to fly away until the result is not achieved. It is both the last persecution and the way to escape. Both Karen and Dennis realized that neither of them would completely sacrifice for the other, and it was a respect for both of them to separate. Before it belongs to a lover, a person belongs to him or herself first. If it is completely changed for love, then the relationship will be degraded at the same time. One side of it is no longer the original one, and half of the elements have been subverted. One should love oneself first, and both of them do. Of course, change is the price of a relationship, and only by changing two people can they get along more smoothly, but this change cannot be subversive and self-sacrificing.
Maybe all of this is our own interpretation of it from a true story, because history is that Dennis went to Mombasa on a date with another mistress, not Karen, when his plane crashed.
Let's just enjoy it, even if it's not completely real, even if reality is always full of flaws, even if it's just a movie - on the second viewing, I noticed Dennis was washing Karen's hair and there was water in his shirt in the stomach area The shampooed foam, which is indeed the most romantic part of the film, can be seen in Karen's closed but intoxicated eyes; when Karen has moved all the furniture out of the house, she and Dennis see each other for the last night , the two of them danced among the furniture in a yard, and the old female voice in the title thought again: the farm never did belong to me.... At Dennis' funeral, Karen had no tears, but her pain came from that poem. The trembling hand expressed it more strongly: he is not ours… he is not mine…. She could not scatter the earth that buried him.
Finally, the narrator quotes the original text of the book: if i know a song of Africa, does Africa know a song of me?
She had a farm in Africa…. the soil of Africa became the ink of her…
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