When I have the time, I will tackle a longer film like Out of Africa (1985).  Actually, in doing more research about it, I was surprised that it did not end up on the American Film Institute’s (AFI) list of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time list.  Had it been, I would have already seen it.  Yet, somehow, this film that was nominated for eleven academy awards, winning seven including for Best Picture, was overlooked by the AFI.  Since it is a more modern ordering, I guess the movie’s sense of colonial noblesse oblige is what made AFI steer away from it.  There is some of that in it, but what I took away from it was the sense that God puts us where He wants us.  It is for us to adapt, and that is what the main character must do.

That main character is Baroness Karen Dinesen (Meryl Streep), and we begin literally Out of Africa, as in this Danish aristocrat is in her native country and reminiscing about her time in the title location.  The person she first remembers is Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford), but as she comments in her narration, that is getting ahead of ourselves.  We properly meet her in Denmark being jilted by her lover for marriage.  Wanting to be wedded, she asks his brother, Hans “Bror” von Blixen-Finecke (Klaus Maria Brandauer).  He agrees to her proposal as a matter of convenience, the two being more friends than anything else.  However, it also means that they will be living in Kenya where they plan to build a farm.  On the journey through the African continent is the first time she encounters Denys, who materializes out of the bush to stop her train and load some ivory onto it.  He then disappears back into the wilderness as quickly as he came.  Karen’s first official act in the area is her wedding, and right afterwards the couple heads to their land.  Upon getting there, Bror informs her that they will be planting coffee instead of having a herd of dairy cows.  She is not pleased by this development, nor by his desire to constantly be out hunting.  Nonetheless, she sets to working her soil and becoming ingratiated with the locals.  In the process, she is saved from a lion attack by Denys, who once more suddenly shows up.  He and another male friend of Karen’s, Berkeley Cole (Michael Kitchen), spend the night with her, mesmerized by her story telling ability.  It is the beginning of a complicated affair, that gets more so with the outbreak of World War I.  Despite not being English (they are living in a British colony), Bror joins the empire’s army, again to Karen’s frustration.  During the fighting, he is not expecting when she is ordered to leave their farm and go for protection.  She is able to make it through with some help from Denys, who is impressed with how well she is taking to being in Africa.  So, too, is Bror, who spends an intimate night with Karen before she returns to the farm.  The result of this coupling is that she contracts syphilis, which he did not know he carried.  It is also a mark of his infidelity.  In order to gain treatment, she returns to Denmark while he agrees to continuing building their homestead into a coffee factory.  As soon as she has been cured, she returns, but she informs him that she can no longer have children.  Between that and the end of the war, their marriage is virtually at an end and she asks him to find a place in town to live.  Once this is done, she throws herself into the work of harvesting and processing the crop until one day she is visited by Denys.  Against her better judgement, she accepts an invitation to go on safari with him.  Upon surviving a lion attack in which she stands her ground and shoots one of the charging predators, they share a tent for the first time, if you know what I mean.  Upon doing so, she wants some assurances from him that they can make something of their relationship, but he remains noncommittal.  She admits her feelings to Berkeley, and he warns Karen to be careful.  She carries on anyway.  Upon visiting Barkeley and learning that he is dying, Denys approaches Karen to ask if he might keep some things with her, essentially making her farm his home base for his wanderings.  These travels eventually bring him into possession of an airplane, which provides the two with a bird’s eye view of the land they had come to cherish.  As heavenly as this all seems, there are cracks.  For example, Bror comes to the farm one day asking for money, and this is how he learns of Karen’s affair with Denys.  It eventually leads to Bror asking for a divorce, although it is because he is again in need of funds and so that he can carry on his own extra-marital affair.  The impending procedure has her wanting to marry Denys, but he tries to play off her request while getting defensive about the institution.  It is the start of the deterioration of their relationship.  The more she tries to hold on, the more he pushes her away, citing his need for freedom.  The real break comes when her coffee processing barn burns to the ground with her best crop inside, effectively ruining her.  Instead of rebuilding, she decides to return to Denmark.  There is one final gesture for her to make, though, and that is making sure her neighbors the Kikuyu have land on which to settle.  Denys appears as Karen makes her plea to the new governor, which is what gives her request the weight it needs.  He then asks to go with her as far as Mombasa on the way back to Europe, but she finds out from Bror that his plane has crashed and Denys has died.  She arranges a funeral for him before finally departing, never to return.

As I listened to the final words in Out of Africa, I was moved more than I expected.  There is a certain sense that the whites are there to fix the blacks in the movie, which is not ideal.  What I appreciated more was the change it rendered in Karen.  I connect this back to Faith because a relationship with God, like one with the land or a person, has to evolve over time.  What we have to do is let go of our expectations.  Before continuing, I should confess to feeling somewhat wrongfooted in using this film to talk about anything proper.  I did not care for her interactions with Bror or Denys, even if the dynamics were understood between them.  Yes, it is part of my Catholic teaching that makes me prefer more traditional arrangement.  What I can say about Karen, though, is that she is chasing after something into which God arguably is not calling her, that being marriage.  It is something she desperately wants, making deals with Bror just to be in one, and trying to get Denys to eventually ask her even if it is just to turn him down.  What she is doing making an idol of the institution.  In this way, she is putting something else above God.  Faith is not a part of the story to any real degree, so it is a little silly to be saying this, but it is nonetheless true.  Another way of putting this, one more in keeping with the movie’s content, is that she is surrendering her freedom.  Again, this has to be contextualized because freedom for Denys is the ability to come and go as he pleases from Karen’s place.  In Christian terms, it is freely choosing God over anything else.  There is some of this in the way Karen adapts to her living circumstances.  She makes the best of her situation, and when God brings her a sign (which she actually acknowledges) in the form of the barn fire, she moves in a different direction.  God could be calling you in a similar manner, and your resistance will bring you no peace.  Be open to where He will take you.

It also takes you a while to get through Out of Africa, which clocks in at a little over two and a half hours.  Yet, if you like sweeping shots of African savannas, this is the film for you.  Also, if you ignore the infidelity, I found Karen to be a person of character, which is always good in my book.  This one is a recommendation for me, though I could see why some might avoid it.