Mr. McDonald's World History: 4th Honors

The movie I chose to watch was Out of Africa, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. The movie is about a woman, Karen Blixen, who has a farm in Africa and everything that happens in her life while she has her farm in Africa. In the beginning of the movie she decides to marry one of her friends so she can hold more power in the world because she could not because she is female and living in the early nineteen hundreds. As the movie progresses, elements of World War I are depicted. The farm she has is a coffee farm which proves to give her many obstacles to overcome. She ends up having to move away from Africa, divorcing her husband, and her lover dies.

From the beginning of the movie, elements of World History are shown. The main character is a Barroness from Denmark, and one of the high class people she is often associated with asks her what side she thinks Denmark will be on if a war is to break out. She answers, "on it's own I hope". Eventually, the war does break out and her husband goes to fight, even though she does not want him to. Another historical element is the white European men essentially taking over African colonies. Geography is also an important element of the movie, because the movie takes place in parts of Africa, and parts of Europe. Overall, the story would not have been able to occur if World War One had not happened because many of the plot lines of the movie were because of the war.

The movie changed my perspective of how white Europeans treated black Africans. Before the movie I thought that when Europeans would go to Africa they would be treated horrible and everyone hated Europeans, when that was not always the case. This true story, showed a woman who really cared about what happened to the people on her farm. She doctors a sick child, takes into conssideration the feelings of their chief, and builds a school for the children of the village. The people who live in the area ador her and whenever she leaves them they always anticipate her arrival, especially one of the men who work ariund her house that she grew very close to.

I really enjoyed the film, it was entertaining as well as interesting. The filming was phenominal, and the movie had a lot of cute moments. Although the movie was very enjoyable, it did end on a sad note, which was most unfortunate. The acting was also good, and the accent was believable. All in all, I would have liked to watch this movie in my spare time, and the elements of world history were tied in wonderfully.