Waste of time

Sorry, this movie sucks

Sick Product of a Sick System

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Released in 2000 and directed by Hugh Hudson, "I Dreamed of Africa" stars Kim Basinger as Kuki, a divorced Italian socialite who moves to Kenya in the early 70s with her son and new husband (Vincent Perez) to start a cattle ranch. As her adventure-loving hubby leaves for days on end with his pals, Kuki faces great challenges – fierce storms, wild animals, brutal poachers, venomous snakes and worse. Meanwhile she must learn to live with a neighboring tribe while her mother (Eva Marie Saint) implores her to return home. Daniel Craig is on hand in a peripheral role. Although this movie contains some spectacular African photography, the emphasis is on the hard life of ranching in Kenya during the 70s. The director is known for a couple of great or near-great movies, e.g. "Chariots of Fire" (1981) and "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes" (1984), but here he's let down by a shaky script with characters you don't know or care about, except for the protagonist, Kuki. Some scenes in the first act come off awkwardly staged and unconvincing. The result is a string of events with not enough narrative pull. Still, "I Dreamed of Africa" is worth checking out as a companion piece to other true cinematic tales of colonial Kenya, like "Out of Africa" (1985), which takes place during WWI, and "Nowhere in Africa" (2001), which takes place during WWII. The film runs 114 minutes and was shot in Kenya, South Africa and Italy.GRADE: C

As someone who loves African scenery and doesn't mind ogling Kim Bassinger, either, I was looking forward to seeing this film. It turned out to be disappointing. The scenery wasn't nearly what I had hoped, certainly no "Out Of Africa," and the story was, in a word: boring.I never quite understood, or was told, a number of things in here, such as how the leading lady "Kuki Gallman") in this movie and her husband, financially survived. He was out fishing and hunting with his buddies all the time and she was home building some sort of wildlife conversation. One almost got to the point of asking, "What's the point of this story?" outside of being some sort of travelogue. That's the feel I got; an overly-long documentary about living in Kenya. It gets boring quickly.Given the circumstances and scenery, this movie should have been fascinating, but it tedious. I'm not surprised it flopped at the box office and video stores.

Sadly, such a beautiful title demanded a good film but alas. we didn't dream of Africa.... Kuki's story is meant to move you... fill you with a deep understanding for her Passion for Africa.... As someone who was born and brought up in Kenya, I can understand anyone's passion for The breathtaking beauty of the African landscape.. the films flaws lie in its editing. there is a lot of chopping and changing. We don't get to sense her reason for loving land that is Africa to death even though it takes her husband and her son away from her. What we get is and image of a sad bitter and twisted colonial woman. The cinematography is below average and important scenes such as Paulo's funeral don't have the impact that they should have. Though enjoyable not the best and sadly won't be remembered as a great movie but a disaster that just faded away.....

`White folks in exotic lands', such as the Italians in Africa's Kenya in Hugh Hudson's I Dreamed of Africa, are always looking for themselves amidst colonialism, racial ignorance, and gender stereotypes.I Dreamed of Africa is a film based on the true story of Kuki Gallman (Kim Basinger), an upper-class, divorced Italian woman who falls in love with and marries the handsome adventurer Paolo Gallman (Vincent Perez). She then moves to Africa with her new husband and her seven-year-old son Emanuele (Liam Aiken) to seek a new life on a ranch in Kenya. Kuki's reasoning for uprooting her and her son's life in Italy in order to move to Africa with a man she has barely known is simply reduced to her explanation, `I've stopped growing.' The movie is then held together by a string of tragic events and crying caused by Africa, including the death of Kuki's husband and son. We never really understand why Kuki continues to be adamant about surviving in Africa in spite of very little character growth (her original reason for moving to Africa), her mother's constant advice to move back to Italy, and a high society lifestyle to return to. The movie ends with an epigraph indicating that Kuki created a conservation foundation: this seems to be the film's "proof" that she's developed, yet it is tacked on as an afterthought. Aside from the film's many structural weaknesses, apparent societal politics involving colonialism, race, and gender are completely glossed over.Europeans never seem to tire of traveling to Africa to exploit its people and resources. Since the early colonialist/safari movies such as Tarzan and Drums of the Congo, Africa has been portrayed as a dangerous exotic land that must be tamed, explored, and conquered. The initial fascination and curiosity gradually turns into hostility and contempt as the Europeans try to explain the Africans peoples' looks, habits and differences to justify their exploitation. Today, the Europeans still allow their fascination and curiosity to justify exploitation. Kuki, Paolo, and Emanuele's migration to Kenya stems from a fascination and curiosity of the country and transforms into a struggle for survival that leaves two thirds of them dead. The audience is left with the assessment of Africa and its inhabitants as dangerous and in need of some serious help. `Fortunately', the ending's epigraph indicating that Kuki created a conservation foundation assists in the alleviation our `concerns'. The omission of Africans in the Africa of I Dreamed of Africa follows the consistent vein of `white folks in exotic lands' films. This film shot in Kenya is about the struggles white people face when they move to Africa, and is clearly a movie about Europeans. There is nothing new about the sweeping shots of Africa's landscapes (without Africans) that attempt to carry the film through its weak plotline. The native Africans become just another element in the exotic landscape, allowing the film to sidestep the charged issues of racism and the legacy of imperialism in the 1980s. The only dark-skinned individuals are servants, local natives, and poachers. Paolo seems obsessed with guns and hunting, and it seems highly unethical for him to be calling African poachers `butchers' when Kuki sees a dead rhino and asks, `Who would do this?' The film ignores the similarities between Paolo's frequent hunting and the poachers' killing, and asks the viewer to take his side by showing his "concern" for wildlife and presenting the Africans as "butchers!" I Dreamed of Africa had an opportunity to portray Kuki Gallman as a strong woman overcoming many hardships, struggles, and trials in a foreign land; but portrayed her as a woman who managed to keep her hair, house, and clothing clean and beautiful and neat in spite of African ranch life. Her `adventure of a lifetime' was running a ranch; making mistakes without learning much from them, and watching the men in her life leave and die. Though voiceover can be an effective device for detailing a character's thoughts and personal growth, it fails miserably here because Kuki doesn't appear to have anything meaningful or even amusing to say. As she surveys the landscape about her, she can only note, "I am alone. Yet I am never alone. I am surrounded by Africa." If Kuki's voiceover is a means to allow the viewer into Kuki's head, the main female character's thoughts are empty and meaningless. She seems helpless when she asks `Why is love so hard?' when her son goes to a boarding school and `What kind of people do this?' when she comes across a dead rhino, and does nothing to really follow up these questions. Though the film professes to be about the amazing life of Kuki Gallman, her internal and personal growth; we never really get a sense of her as a very complex or evolving woman. I Dreamed of Africa stays true to its `white folks in exotic lands' counterpart films with its treatment of colonialism, race, and gender. These issues are secondary throughout the film, though set in a time and place where they are very real and controversial. The audience is led to believe that Europeans are right to exploit Africa, Africans have no real role in their native land, and that white women are really very silly. I Dreamed of Africa has its role as proof towards the destruction of truth consistent to these `white folks in exotic lands' films.