Out of Africa (film)

Out of Africa is a 1985 romantic drama epic based on the autobiographical books Out of Africa and Shadows in the Grass by Karen Blixen under the psuedonym of Isak Dinesen.

Plot
Karen Blixen recalls her life in Africa where in 1913 she, as an unmarried wealthy Danish woman, is spurned by her Swedish nobleman lover, and moves to Nairobi, British East Africa to complete a marriage of convenience with her lover's brother, Baron Bror Blixen. Bror has gone through his money and is reduced to seducing the servant girls; the couple plans to establish a dairy cattle farm. En route to Nairobi, she meets Denys Finch Hatton, a local big-game hunter.

It is Farah that greets her at the train station; Bror is nowhere to be found. So, at Muthaiga Club, she enters the men's bar to ask for him, and she is asked to leave. Karen and Bror marry before the day is out in a "long" ceremony. As Baroness Blixen she learns that Bror has changed their agreed upon plan, to instead establish a coffee farm. However, his interest is more in running big game hunting on safari than at management of the farm.

Eventually, Karen does develop feelings for Bror, but she contracts syphilis from him during the First World War. Bror agrees to manage the farm while she takes treatment in Denmark. When she returns, he resumes working on safari. They begin to live separately.

The relationship between Karen and Denys develops, and he comes to live with her. Karen and Bror get a divorce. When Denys invites a mutual woman friend on safari, Karen comes to realize that Denys does not want the same type of relationship she seeks. He assures her that when he is with her he wants to be with her, and that a marriage is immaterial to their relationship. He moves out.

The farm eventually yields a good harvest, but a fire greatly damages Karen's farm and causes her tremendous financial harm. Karen prepares for her departure from Kenya Colony to Denmark by appealing for land for her Kĩkũyũ workers to allow them to stay together, and by selling at a rummage sale the things that she will not take with her to Denmark.

Before the rummage sale, Denys visits the empty house and Karen comments that the house should have been so all along; Denys says that he was just getting used to her things. They agree that the coming Friday Denys will fly her to Mombasa; Karen to continue on to Denmark. Friday comes; Bror arrives to tell her that Denys' biplane has crashed and burned.

Following the funeral, she goes to Denys' club to complete arrangements for managing any mail that in her absence may arrive; the members extend to her a toast. At the train station, she says goodbye to Farah, then turns back to ask him to say her name.

Karen later became an author and a storyteller, writing about her experiences in Africa, though she never was to return.

Production
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Cast

 * Robert Redford as Denys Finch Hatton
 * Meryl Streep as Baroness Karen von Blixen (née Dinesen)
 * Klaus Maria Brandauer as Baron Bror von Blixen & Baron Hans von Blixen
 * Michael Kitchen as Berkeley Cole
 * Shane Rimmer as Belknap
 * Malick Bowens as Farah Aden
 * Joseph Thiaka as Kamante
 * Stephen Kinyanjui as Chief Kinanjui
 * Michael Gough as Hugh Cholmondeley, Lord Delamere
 * Suzanna Hamilton as Felicity Spurway
 * Rachel Kempson as Sarah, Lady Belfield
 * Graham Crowden as Henry, Lord Belfield
 * Benny Young as Minister
 * Leslie Phillips as Sir Joseph Aloysius Byrne
 * Annabel Maule as Lady Byrne
 * Iman as Mariammo

Crew

 * Director, Producer: Sydney Pollack
 * Producer: Kim Jorgensen

Source Citation
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