The movie “Out of Africa” begins in Denmark in 1913, where Karen, after having failed to get her Swedish noble lover to marry her, proposes marriage out of mutual convenience to her lover’s brother and her friend, Baron Bror Blixen. According to their plan, Bror is to set up a dairy farm in British East Africa using the funds from Karen’s family, and Karen to join him later. On her way to Africa, Karen meets Denys Finch Hatton, a big-game hunter, who knows her fiancé. “I’m Baroness Blixen,” she says. “Not yet,” he teases. A headman hired by Bror greets Karen at the train station and takes her to the Muthaiga club, where the white settlers meet. She enters the club’s bar to look for Bror and is asked to leave because the bar is men’s territory. Despite that no wedding ring has been given to her and her newlywed husband is flirting with a woman in the wedding ceremony, Karen is glad to have gotten the Baroness Blixen title.
After they arrive at their farm, Bror informs Karen that he has spent her money in establishing a coffee farm instead of a cattle ranch. She argues with him about it, only to find that the next morning he has gone hunting without saying goodbye. Her headman tells her Bror will not come home until it rains, and chances are that it will not rain for many days. Furthermore, she quickly learns the farm is at too high an elevation for the coffee plants to prosper. In hopes that it’s just something no one has ever tried before, she directs her attention in building the coffee farm, and at the same time looks after the local Kikuyu people who live on her land.
One day when exploring the area, Karen comes face to face with a lion and at that very moment, a calm voice behind her advises her to stay still. Berkeley Cole, who met Karen during her wedding and has been friends with her ever since, has come to visit along with his friend Denys, who owns the cool voice. The three of them have a very enjoyable dinner together, with Karen telling a fabulous long story about two lovers in a faraway country, which she composes instantaneously after the first sentence provided by Denys. The next day before he leaves, Denys gives the storyteller a pen, “Write them down sometimes.”
It rains in time and Bror is coming home, finding Karen awaiting in the rain. Karen has come to the realization that she wants to keep her husband home at all costs. Hence, she proposes having children and is glad to know that he is not opposed to the idea.
As the First World War reaches East Africa, Bror goes off to the front, although he doesn’t have to by reason of his nationality. Soon a messenger is sent to ask Karen for supplies. Not wishing to be interned in town, which is intended to keep children and women safe, and worrying about Bror, Karen decides to deliver the supplies herself. She gets lost shortly after that and just in time runs into Denys and Berkeley. Berkeley tries to convince her to go back right away because it’s very dangerous if she proceeds, whereas Denys says, “I imagine she knows that,” and extends another gift to her: a compass. When in the night a lion starts attacking the oxen, which are used to pull the wagons, Karen rushes out of her camp and whips the lion like crazy, before anybody else could come to help her. After a very difficult expedition, she gets reunited with her husband for one night and kisses him goodbye in his sleep before leaving the next morning.
Three months after her return to the farm, Karen discovers that she has contracted syphilis from the night spent with Bror. While he may have just a touch, she has become so ill that the doctor tells her to go home to deal with it. Before she sets off for Denmark, Karen runs into Denys when fetching her letters in the club. He compliments her with “I heard you had made it” referring to her having made it to the warfront, and “I’d have paid anything to see their faces” referring to the reactions of the crowd. And, he tells her Berkeley is sick with fever.
Karen goes back to Denmark during the war, while fighting her own war against syphilis with only an even chance of success. In addition to the effect of the medicine, with the comfort of the room where she was born and of the long walks taken with her mother along a deserted stretch of beach, she gets cured, except that she can’t have children. Upon her return to Africa after recovery, Karen is welcomed by her Kikuyu like a returning hero. She has always taken good care of her Kikuyu, and has looked after their needs, especially their medical needs. Now that she can’t have children of her own, she starts a school to provide basic education to the native children.
During the New Year party in the club, Karen is quarreling with somebody, who is furious about her school because he doesn’t think the natives are worth being educated, when Denys quickly draws her away. Denys himself is not in favor of the school either, because in his opinion, the natives have their own stories and shouldn’t be turned into little Englishmen. Furthermore, he warns Karen that “We’re not owners here; we are just passing through.” “Is life really so damn simple for you?” she asks. “Perhaps I ask less of it than you do,” he answers. “I don’t believe that at all,” she replies.
On their way back from the party, Karen discovers that Bror has just cheated on her. This makes it clear that no matter how dear a price she has paid for their marriage, he will never stop pursuing other sexual relationships. On the grounds of Bror’s infidelity, she asks him to move out. Afterwards she chooses to bury herself in endless farm work.
One day Denys comes to invite Karen to a safari trip with him, telling her that “There are parts of this country you should see; it won’t last long.” On their trip, they go through the habitats of elephants, zebras, giraffes, buffalos, and hippos; they play Mozart to a troop of baboons to see whether they will run off; he washes her hair by the river while reciting a poem; they are both struck with wonder when a biplane flies over and she talks to him about her father, who used to tell her stories about his adventures but killed himself when she was 10 years old; they work together to defend themselves from two hungry lions, with her shooting the first one that’s charging towards them, and him the second; they have dinner in the star-lit night of Africa, where according to Denys, one can see further than any other places. Karen sadly confesses that she had syphilis and as a result can’t have children. “So the school,” Denys realizes. “So the school. The farm; that’s what I am now,” Karen says, with tears in her eyes. “No,” he replies, firmly and gently. After him starting a story but her only telling the beginning of it, he follows her into her tent.
Berkeley comes for a visit after she is back from the safari, and Karen is bursting to tell him her feelings towards Denys. Berkeley warns her, “He likes to give presents, but not at Christmas.” He asks whether she would divorce, to which she answers, “Then I would have no one.” Soon afterwards, Berkeley dies of blackwater fever. Prior to his death, not known to his friends, he had been with a Masai woman for quite some years, and by virtue of this love, he had called Africa home.
Denys comes to visit Karen again and again, usually for a very short stay. At one point, he moves all his belongings to her home so that he can cancel his room in the club. In the days and hours that Denys is at home, they never talk about her troubles with the farm, or his work, or what’s happening in Africa. They are completely disconnected from real life. As Karen recalls it at a later age, the only thing that matters to them is that “In the evenings, he made himself comfortable, spreading cushions like a couch in front of the fire, and with me sitting cross-legged like Scheherazade herself, he would listen clear-eyed to a long tale, from when it began until it ended.”
Denys comes to pick up Karen for an aerial ride on the very next day after he learned to fly the biplane that he has acquired. They are both awed by the breathtaking view from the top, when flying over the forest, the plain, the mountain and the river of Africa. When they are above the clouds, Karen extends one hand towards Denys, who is in the back seat, and he takes it, making it the climax of their relationship.
One day while Karen and Denys are having a meal, Bror comes to ask her for money. Though she is almost broke, she writes him a generous check. “I could shoot him.” Bror said. But why would he? Only Karen starts to feel uncomfortable about the complicated relationships between the three of them. “Doesn’t it matter to you that I’m another man’s wife?” she asks Denys, and to her disappointment the answer is no.
Soon afterwards Bror has found a rich woman to marry and asks for a divorce. It stimulates Karen’s desire to enter marriage with Denys. “How would wedding change things?” he asks. “I would have someone of my own,” she answers. Looking into her eyes, he declares, “I won’t be closer to you, and I won’t love you more because of a piece of paper.” Day by day, it becomes more and more clear to Karen that Denys doesn’t share her desire for a committed relationship. One day, while she is mending his shirt, he lifts his head from the map he’s examining, and tells her, “Don’t. Don’t do that. You don’t have to do that.” Denys then mentions that a woman acquaintance of theirs wants to come along with him on his next safari trip. Despite that she doesn’t think he will get involved with this other woman, Karen strongly objects to them traveling together, because she wants Denys to care about her feelings, even if that means he will have to pay a price, which is, in this case, to give up the idea of traveling with this other woman. Also, she realizes that Denys is the one who wants to have it all: a relationship with her and his freedom intact. “I’m going to Samburu and she can come or not,” Denys says. “Then you’ll be living elsewhere,” she replies.
The farm eventually yields a good harvest, but a fire burns down the barn. Now that her harvest is all gone, leaving her unable to repay her loan, her land is to be taken by the bank. She runs through all the colonial authorities to find a new home for her Kikuyu to stay together but is told that “What you want is quite impossible.” Eventually, she goes down on both knees to beg the new governor in his inauguration ceremony. When several officials are trying to force her up, Denys, who has just rushed in, requests “Give her a moment, please.” To her petition, the governor says, “I’ll look into it. We’ll do the best we can.” “May I have your word, sir?” Karen asks. “You have mine,” the governor’s wife stands up and replies.
On their way out of the ceremony venue, Denys offers his help with this episode of tragedy in her life, but Karen is not willing to take less than what she truly deserves: “You would keep me then? No. I want to be worth something now.” She tells him that his belongings are packed and that after the rummage sale she will leave for Mombasa on Friday and then take a boat from there to Denmark.
With everything taken out for the rummage sale, Karen is sitting under a dim candlelight in the empty house. Denys walks in. Looking around, Karen says, “I think we should have had it this way all the time,” to which Denys comments with, “I don’t know. I was beginning to like your things.” Hesitantly, he said, “You’ve ruined it for me, you know?” “Ruined what?” “Being alone.” Then she shares with him a little thing she has learned to do recently, “When it gets so bad and I think I can’t go on, I try to make it worse. I make myself think about our camp on the river. And Berkeley. And the first time that you took me flying. How good it all was. And when I’m certain that I can’t stand it, I go one moment more, and then I know I can bear anything. Would you like to help me?” “Yes,” he says.
Denys is to come back the following Friday to fly Karen to Mombasa. However, he doesn’t keep his promise—he gets killed in the crash of his biplane. He is buried on the mountain where the two of them have talked about death. During his funeral, Karen recites a poem in the remembrance and respect of him.
Prior to her departure, being recognized for the extra efforts she has taken to look after the natives, Karen is invited to the men-only bar for a toast. Before she steps on the train, she turns back to ask her headman to say her name, for the first time, and for the last time.
Karen comes back to her mother’s house, as she knew she would. From there she writes about every moment of her life in Africa, as if she were making up stories for Denys so that he could hear them when he came back. She never returns to Africa.
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