Out of Africa

The movie i chose to watch was Out of Africa (1985) starring Meryle Streep and Robert Redford. The movie is about a Danish woman named Karen Blixon who moved to a European colony in Kenya, East Africa during the year 1913, in order to get married and run a ranch. While in Africa, World War I breaks out and all of the men go to fight in the war, leaving the women at home. During the duration of her time in Africa, Karen's husband becomes distant an unfaithful to her and eventually transmits syphilis to her. She returns to Denmark for three years in order to receive treatment. After returning home, her husband moves out. She falls in love again and accomplishes many things while in Africa. In the end, Karen returns to Denmark and leaves the land that she once fell in love with.

There were a couple elements of World History that were touched on in this movie. One of these is World War I. All of the men travel south to fight in the war, while the women are forced to take control of the house and make ends meet. Through this experience they learn a lot about survival and leadership. Another element of World History that I noticed in the movie was English colonization in Africa. Many of the Africans are still slaves, however they get a lot of respect from the white people.

This movie really changed my view of Africa during this time period. I learned about English colonies in Africa and also saw how the war affected people in that area. At first, I thought that the white people would treat the Africans unfairly and not care about them at all. However, in this film, Karen respects her workers and cares for them a lot. She encourages one boy to go to the hospital because he was hurt. She also builds a school in order to educate the black children, althogh this received some disapproval from some of the English settlers. This helped me to understand how people were treated during this time period in Africa.

I enjoyed this movie. The story line was really great. It helped me to understand the war and life during that time. I really enjoyed the romance. She started off in a marriage to someone that she did not really love and they ended up splitting. Later, she finds her true love but he fails to commit. In the end, he dies in a plane crash. This movie was very interesting and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.