One love in Africa

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title One love in Africa
Country of production Germany , Austria
original language German
Publishing year 2003
length 180 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Xaver Schwarzenberger
script Gabriela Sperl
production Nico Hofmann
music Nikolaus Glowna ,
Siggi Mueller
camera Xaver Schwarzenberger
cut Helga Borsche
occupation

A love in Africa is a two-part television melodrama by Xaver Schwarzenberger , who was also behind the camera, from 2003. In addition to Heiner Lauterbach , Julia Stemberger , Bernhard Schir , Friedrich von Thun , Renée Soutendijk , Hans-Michael Rehberg and Monica Bleibtreu are important Roles occupied. Hannelore Elsner is a special guest in the two-parter.

When the film was first broadcast, the broadcaster wrote: “'A love in Africa' is a love story against the background of the growing social problems facing South African society. It's about Jo (Heiner Lauterbach), an Anglican bishop who fights for social justice and against the spread of HIV, and Miriam (Julia Sternberger), whose life is shaken to the core by the accident of her fiancé (Bernhard Schir). "

action

Part 1

Stefan von Braun, a successful surgeon , is on his way to South Africa with his fiancée, the physiotherapist Miriam Steiner . His father Bernhard is celebrating his 70th birthday. Stefan grew up in South Africa, but has not been there for ten years. At that time he left his homeland to study medicine in Munich . At the time, he left the country because his father was having an affair before his mother died. He soon married Denise. The reunion between father and son is cautious. Stefan's father, a liberal landowner who is by no means indifferent to the problems of blacks, is not very enthusiastic that Bernhard wants to marry Miriam because he is of the opinion that she doesn't fit into the family. His behavior towards Miriam is then also shaped by his attitude.

When Stefan reveals to Miriam that he would actually like to stay in South Africa, she is anything but enthusiastic. The country is not only alien to her, there is also something threatening to it. She definitely wants to go back to Europe.

A robbery in which Stefan is critically injured changes everything. While Stefan is in the hospital, his best friend, the Anglican Bishop of Uzimvubu Johannes "Jo" Mallinger, takes care of Miriam. To distract the young woman from her gloomy thoughts, Jo takes her on his daily tours through the country. The bishop is known for his vehement efforts to improve the living conditions of the black population and for fighting against the fact that AIDS and violence are occupying an ever larger area in the country. Little by little he brings Miriam closer to the country, which is foreign to her, and also to the people who live there. On one of these nights, Jo and Miriam get very close.

It is difficult for Miriam to accept that Stefan will remain paralyzed from the waist down. His father wants him to return to the family estate "Rosebud". Stefan asks Miriam to take care of his affairs in Germany. Jo shows up at the airport and wants to know if she'll be back. “Should I come again, Reverend”, asks Miriam. She must come back - for Stefan, is his answer.

Part 2

Miriam is back and is trying to take care of Stefan. However, he no longer lets her get close to him, also because he can no longer sleep with her and is of the opinion that he can no longer offer her anything. When she meets Jo again, he tells her that Stefan asked him to look after her. Stefan's father, however, wants to transfer the farm to him and hopes that his son will find a new meaning in life as a winegrower in his home country. The doctor, however, resists angrily. Actually, you can't please him anymore. He only talks openly with Denise. Now he has got it into his head that his father should transfer his share to Miriam. When Bernhard fights off von Braun, he asks him to just do it for his sake.

Jo has many other problems to do with the phenomenon that young black men believe that they can fight AIDS through sex with a virgin, which leads to repeated rapes. The bishop tries to find a solution with his black confidante so that the men do not succumb to this mistaken belief.

Stefan speaks to Miriam, he wants her to admit that she would leave him because of Jo when he was healthy. Miriam leaves him alone, exasperated. At some point she'll understand him, he mumbles sadly. At the same time, Carl Houwer drives up to Jo's house. However, he is not at home. His mother reluctantly invites him in. He tells her that he intends to support Jo in his AIDS awareness campaign. That also has to do with the fact that he is now with the black lawyer Anina. Meanwhile, Jo learns from Jane that he is the father of her daughter Emilie, who is now 7 years old, and that she has loved him for years, but never dared to demand this love.

When Jo comes back, Stefan is waiting for him in front of the house. He insists that Miriam cannot help him. Again he wants Jo to take care of Miriam, she loves him, even if she would never admit it. He wants to know if Stefan loves Miriam too. As Jo pans around, he says that Jo should say yes to a woman for once. Why couldn't he? He didn't need to feel guilty about him. Ah, his professional obsession probably prevents him, the saint, the figure of light from doing so. He doesn't know anyone who is as egomaniacal and narcissistic as Jo.

Only a short time later, Stefan is dead. The experienced pilot deliberately crashed the Cessna he was driving. Jo gives the funeral oration in the church, which was supposed to be the place where Stefan and Myriam were married. Bernhard von Braun is devastated. Although he first had his troubles with Miriam, he now hopes that she will stay. However, Miriam is determined to turn down the inheritance and leave. When she is about to say goodbye to the school project she had helped with and Sophia, a young black woman, a car pulls up and a young man shouts that Maria's rapists are free again. The car starts moving and, after a brief hesitation, Miriam follows the request to jump up. Even with Jo and Jane, who are involved in AIDS education, the news spreads at lightning speed. In the meantime black women, led by the old grandma, have advanced to the hut of the two young men and have smashed the door. Your grandson Mango can influence the old lady. Nevertheless, both young men die, one at the hands of the women, the other at the police who have been summoned. After this incident, Miriam decides to stay for the time being, as she says. After she has clarified with Jane that she has no objection to a connection between her and Jo, Miriam goes to Jo. He is discouraged and wants to give up his office as bishop, as he has hardly achieved anything so far. And she decided, for Africa and for him. Jo's reaction is not what Miriam had hoped for. Jo has to make another short detour to finally admit to himself that he wants Miriam by his side.

production

Production notes

The film was made as a co-production by ARD Degeto , BR and ORF . It is a production by TeamWorx Television & Film GmbH in cooperation with Two Oceans Production (PTY) Ltd. and by Ufa Fiction on behalf of ARD Degeto . The film was edited by Stephanie Heckner, Thomas Jansing, Hans-Wolfgang Jurgan and Alexander Vedernjak. The executive producer was Wolfgang Hantke. Frank Salmon was in charge of production , while Giselher Venzke, Two Oceans Production acted as line producer . The team's thanks went to Gladstone Mali, Zingi Mtuzula, Caroli and Rolf Dienst, and the residents of the Khayelitsha township. The clergyman Stefan Hippler , who had looked after the German Catholic community on the Cape from 1997 to 2009 , acted as advisor during the shooting .

The title song I'd Be Waiting is performed by Xavier Naidoo .

background

Producer Nico Hofmann said that one was looking for more with the film than the kitsch backdrop of Table Mountain and discovered that because of the inflation, filming in South Africa could be 20 to 30 percent cheaper than in Germany. The screenwriter Gabriela Sperl said that she “seldom experienced so much warmth and courage to live”, “as with these poor people who literally live in the dirt on a former garbage dump”. Compared to their lives, in Europe we are on the island of the blessed, added Julia Stemberger. Heiner Lauterbach was also less cool than one is used to from him. He said: "I really believe that we are not making a joke, but rather show the reality." The actors shot two weeks in the townships of Cape Town. In addition to the black actors, around 200 extras from the neighborhood were there.

publication

The first broadcast of the first part of the film took place on January 22nd, that of the second part on January 24th, 2003 on ARD . On February 20, 2007, MIB-Medienbetrieb in Buchholz released the film on DVD.

criticism

Rainer Tittelbach from tittelbach.tv gave the film 3½ out of 6 possible stars and wrote that the film shows “both sides of” South African “reality”. Against the background of the country's social problems, the two- parter drafts a ' thorn bird' melody. This is a film about "the varieties of love". Above all there is a "longing for romance". The fact that the “film by Xaver Schwarzenberger, which oscillates between exquisite image compositions and realistic ghetto images, hits such themes and pitches” makes it “more than a calculated major project”. You can feel “the heart and soul of those involved”. The result was “authentic pictures without a voyeuristic note”, wrote the critic, “nevertheless: a black leading role would have underlined the credibility of the two-parter”.

Kino.de was of the opinion that the two-parter, which was embedded “in a love story”, tried “to paint a multi-faceted picture of South Africa with all its socially explosive contradictions and conflicts”. It is true that this is "an outstandingly successful film work, but also a love story that appeals to the heart and is on par with the Pilcher films on ZDF". “This price” must “probably be accepted in order to tell an audience of millions about social and political problems in the context of a prime-time feature film”. [...] "The kitschy scenes" carry you away "the strong actors, above all Heiner Lauterbach, who oscillates between ascetic introversion and passionate devotion."

The television magazine Prisma said, "Love and suffering, happiness and death, everything that distinguishes love films is also offered by this two-part". In addition, the director connected "in this drama a great love story with the background of the growing social problems of South African society". He shows "the painful death of a young mother, the rape of a girl and the cruel vigilante justice within the slums".

The film service did not give the film a good rating and above all criticized the fact that viewers should believe that white people are superior to blacks. The reading is this: implausible (television) Schmonzette, ideenarm and bulked up in the false hope that through a combination of , Thorn Birds ' and to survive social romanticism. The viewer should believe that only the white man can save the black man wallowing in superstition, ignorance, violence and inaction; and the white man has to preach, threaten, and demand a lot to get the black man to take a step forward. - From 16.

Also TV movie saw a similar view. There it was said: "The cliché-laden emotional film would like to be critical, but uses the slums only as an exotic backdrop." Conclusion: "Africa's problems with the fabric softener."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A love in Africa (part 1/2) see page br.de
  2. ↑ a b TV feature film online: A love in Africa (1). tvspielfilm.de (incl. 20 film images). Retrieved July 9, 2020 .
  3. ↑ One love in Africa, 2nd part see page degeto.de
  4. ↑ One love in Africa, 1st part see page degeto.de
  5. ↑ a b Rainer Tittelbach : Multi-part “A love in Africa”. Thorn birds epic with Heiner Lauterbach, Julia Stemberger & bitter realism see page tittelbach.tv., January 22, 2003. Accessed on July 9, 2020.
  6. ↑ A love in Africa ill. DVD case Das Erste (in the picture: Julia Stemberger, Heiner Lauterbach)
  7. ↑ A love in Africa. On the kino.de. Retrieved July 9, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Melodrama A love in Africa see page prisma.de. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  9. ↑ A love in Africa. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 9, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used