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I DREAMED OF AFRICA Send This Review to a Friend
Kim Basinger has a challenging role in "I Dreamed of Africa" and she makes the most of it to provide a strong center for this idealistic film linked to the wonders of the natural wild and the effort to protect it from poachers. Based on a real life character and her true story, the film stars Basinger as Kuki Gallmann, depicted here as a courageous woman who suffers terrible losses in her life but fights back to carry on bravely. Basinger gives a bravura performance that widens her range.
Hugh Hudson of "Chariots of Fire" renown directs the film with great feeling for the subject and obvious appreciation for the location as a major force in the story-telling. Director of photography Bernard Lutic has assured that the film is visually stunning, although he uses South Africa as a substitute for Kenya, where the main saga unfolds. As South Africa also has its game preserves, we still get a look at the magnificent elephants, zebras, giraffes and other animals, as I did once when I went on a photographic safari to Kenya. I could not detect any difference, and admittedly, my own experience made this film especially appealing. The screenplay is by Paula Milne and Susan Shilliday based on the book by Gallmann.
Faced with the need to start anew, Gallmann leaves her comfortable surroundings in Venice for uncertainties in Kenya with Paolo, the new man in her life played by Vincent Perez with sexy magnetism, idealism and a macho tendency toward controlling a woman. Basinger is excellent at combining responsiveness with determination to be her own person in the face of the difficulties she underestimates when they move to Kenya to become ranchers. She makes the move against the advice of her well-meaning but more cautious mother (Eva Marie Saint). Gallmann's son Emanuele is played at a young age by Liam Aiken and as a teenager by Garrett Strommen. Other important cast members include Daniel Craig and Lance Reddick.
One weakness in the screenplay is telegraphing future tragedy. The way Emanuele is warned about his snake hobby informs us that something bad is bound to happen. This film hardly needs such tip-offs. But overriding such flaws are the film's intense personal drama and its powerful attitude toward the environment, with colorful depictions of the surroundings and the dangers. In a way Gallmann's stoicism is akin to that of the pioneers shown in films about opening up the American west. A Columbia Pictures release.
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