Out of Africa…movie review

by Richard Subber | Feb 9, 2025 | Theater and play reviews

lions know much

Movie review:

Out of Africa

1985

Rated PG

161 minutes

Out of Africa is a lovably unconventional love story, and the African scenes of flora and fauna are just lush. It won seven Oscars.

A daughter in a rich Danish family, Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) works hard to maintain a coffee plantation in early 20th century Kenya, and in time she falls hard for the cavalierly independent Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford). They enjoy an ill-fated romance, ended by his untimely death.

This poem reflects my “Thumbs up!” review:

Lions know much

The she-lion came first

   before sunrise lighted the lower plain.

She did not sniff the square of whitened stones,

nor the deranged, softly mounded earth.

She kept walking, slowly, in the lifting dark.

Later, she returned, with her mate,

to dally on that sunlit slope,

and gaze at the heedless beasts

   on the plain below.

The pair returned, another day,

with easy steps,

to tarry in that terraced space,

they could not know, perhaps,

of the man who had been laid

   in their earth, in their domain,

they lingered, not knowing, perhaps,

that the still form beneath their feet

   had been a gentle man,

but aware, somehow,

that he had been of their world,

that they could add grace to his grave.

The film is based on the 1937 book, Out of Africa, by Karen Blixen (1885-1962) (pen name Isak Dinesen).

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Movie review. My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

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