I love…

At last, I am seeing one of the most beautiful movies of all time – Out of Africa. Two things stand out from the beginning – Meryl Streep was really beautiful and Kenya is eternal beauty. I would like to warn you readers, that you are going to get tired of the word beautiful.



Sunset in Kenya - a land of various shades





Movies are not meant to be long, because they are afraid of making you bored. People worry about the same thing when they are a company, but still they last longer. There are movies that worry also, and still they last longer. These are the movies with a heart. In that respect, Out of Africa has a large heart.

Sydney Pollack would not have made a finer movie than this, neither would John Barry make finer music, nor did Robert Redford have made finer understated performance. A movie which has all these along with one of the most beautiful actress of her time ought to be a masterpiece. So for putting facts in place, it is place #13 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions (and I concur, it is one of the most passionate movies I have seen, because I feel I see her in the movie) and #15 in AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores. If a cinematographer can’t make Africa beautiful, then that person should not be allowed to touch camera again. Fortunately, it did happen, and the movie won an Oscar for Cinematography along with direction and Score. So I would not like to say how good the movie is or what is truly superb about this aspect or that, rather I would write what this movie is. A very subjective matter; and my reader, if even if you are not opinionative, it is here you should stop and think, before you read further.

It all started as a story you might have heard as a kid. I had a farm in Africa. Nobody could have sounded more sensitive that Meryl than when she said these words. One of the most beautiful thing about Meryl is her perfection, her voice is absolutely sexy and but she is not. She is plain beautiful. I would not mind saying that she has the most striking features in any lady, except Lady Audrey. You might have seen Africa in Nat Geo or Discovery, but this is different. In this you see Africa as a land of people, living with Animals, and having a life. The story starts before the Great War (as they used to call it before the greater one came) and continues after it ends, telling the story of Africa as it goes on in the 20th century. Robert Redford character Denys Flint-Hatton says to Baroness Blixen, there is land which ought to be seen, because it won’t last long. Fortunately, the land is still alive because of people like him are still there.

Africa, Africa....when will I be able to give you a kiss….I yearn for the land as much as I yearn for her. The lush green mountains, the wide expanse of land, the herds of wild buffalos, the mountains, the waterfalls, the lakes, the sea and all that is in her bosom, is so lush and beautiful that you will find it hard to imagine the mosquitoes, or the snakes, or the diseases, or for that matter, in the present situation, the civil wars and strife. Whatever is happening in Africa is so bad that Hemingway would have shot himself again.

There are a few extremely good lines in the movie, like it’s an odd feeling, farewell. There is such envy in it. Men go off to be tested, for courage. And if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness and my favorite, I won't be closer to you and I won't love you more because of a piece of paper. I could have said that second one, but was made to feel that it is not what is expected of me, and ended up as neither for which I am always grateful.

Baroness is a lady of character. She fights for her position in family by marrying a titled man. She fights for her farm. She fights of a lioness which has come for taking a part of her cattle. She works along with the people around her, treats them with respect. She goes on a long and unknown trail for seeing the man she loves. She doesn’t do anything half heartedly. If I know that a woman can be such, I shall try not to lose her. Unfortunately, I have. In spite of this, I shall strive on, because as I said I do not want to lose her.

He takes her out in an airplane over Africa, showing her what she would never ever forget, and neither the man who did it. She never does, and that she says right in the beginning itself. There is a wonderful feeling when you write without names.

I am feeling like I am having a lot more to write, but from where they come, they don’t speak English.