Out of ‘Africa’

When German filmmaker Caroline Link read Stefanie Zweig’s1995 autobiographical novel, “Nowhere in Africa,” she was riveted by theunusual Holocaust story. The book describes how 5-year-old Zweig and herparents fled the Nazis to Kenya, where the girl fell in love with the harshlybeautiful land.

“In Germany, we have so many Holocaust films, there isdanger of audience fatigue if you repeatedly show the same stories,” Link, 38,said by phone from her Munich home. “But people don’t know much about what happenedto Jews who managed to leave the country in time. For many, the tragedy startedfar away from Nazi Germany, and I wanted to explore this different aspect ofthe [Shoah].”

Her visually lush “Nowhere in Africa,” joins a growing bodyof cinema about Holocaust refugees, including the acclaimed 2002 documentary,”Shanghai Ghetto,” and trek where few such films have gone before. In themovie, spoiled hausfrau Jettel (Juliane Kohler) reluctantly joins her attorneyhusband, Walter, on a sun-scorched Kenyan farm with their daughter, Regina, intow.

“I think it’s fascinating that this sheltered, unadventurousGerman family suddenly found themselves in the middle of the African desert andwas told, ‘This is where you live now,'” the director said.

Like all of Link’s films, “Nowhere in Africa” is also apoignant study of an offbeat kind of childhood. Her Oscar nominated “BeyondSilence” (1996) was prompted by a newspaper story about a hearing girl whointerprets for her deaf parent, “like a foreign minister for the family,”according to the director. That film, along with “Africa,” features acomplicated father-daughter relationship, partly inspired by Link’s own bondwith her loving, strong-willed father, a retired restaurateur.     

But unlike Zweig’s best-selling novel, which is mostly toldfrom the child’s point of view, “Nowhere in Africa” focuses in large part onthe parents’ strained marriage.

“I wanted to explore what makes a man and a woman staytogether, particularly in impossible times,” Link said. “For me, the mostinteresting character is Jettel because I imagined how a pampered woman couldtransform into a [pioneer].”

Zweig, 70, said that while she loved the movie, she wasamused by the liberties taken with her parents’ story.

“My mother was very spoiled, and didn’t change from themoment she stepped off the boat to the moment she returned to Germany,” shetold The Journal from her Frankfurt home.

She said the scene that best describes her mother was theone in which Jettel recounts purchasing an evening gown with money Walter gaveher to buy an ice chest.

“If you escape Nazi Germany,” Zweig added, “do you think youworry so much about your marriage?”

Nevertheless, the author suggested only minor changes whenLink, who is not Jewish, sent her a draft of her script around 1999. By January2001, the filmmaker was off to Kenya for the grueling, four-month shoot.

On location near the remote village of Mukutani, lifemirrored art as torrential rains threatened to wash away the production’s tentcamp. “The mud was 3 feet deep,” 37-year-old Kohler (“Aimee & Jaguar”) saidduring an interview at the Casa Del Mar Hotel in Santa Monica.

“It was hot; there were malaria mosquitoes and big,poisonous snakes, like black mambas, and we couldn’t leave the camp without guardsbecause of the lions.”

Nevertheless, she said, “Everything was like what thecharacter had experienced, which made the role much easier for me.”

The cast and crew were rewarded when the movie won fiveGerman Film Awards and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar, althoughLink suspects the reason — at least in part — is that the story touches on theShoah.

“It seems like the Academy favors the Holocaust,” she said.”And the foreign film category, in particular, goes for that kind of big,emotional subject matter. I certainly don’t want to complain about thenomination, but it’s too bad they don’t go for more innovative, radical kindsof films.”

“Nowhere in Africa” opens today in Los Angeles.