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In 1914, Karen, a 28-year-old wealthy Danish woman, traveled to Africa for the title of baroness and married baron Bloor Brixen of Sweden.
With a generous dowry, porcelain, crystal, ivory and money, she came to Kenya, East Africa, looking forward to starting a new life in a foreign country with her newlywed husband.
However, Brixon was a clumsy boy who left his wife to go hunting and having fun the day after his new marriage, often not returning home for months, and passed syphilis to Karen, resulting in her lifelong infertility. The marriage ended in divorce.
Later, Karen met the British aristocratic young Dennis, the two were similar in temperament, a very good pair of lovers, but Dennis died of a crash and remained in Africa forever, Karen returned to her hometown of Denmark alone and heartbroken.
That's the story of the movie Out of Africa. Released in 1985, the film starring Meryl Streep won 11 Academy Awards and five Golden Globe nominations and is still enduring today.
The film is based on the novel of the same name by Danish author Karen Brixon, and is also Karen Brixon's real life experience.
In 17 years in Africa, Karen lost her health, lost her marriage, and lost her lover, and in the eyes of people, Karen failed completely.
However, after returning to Denmark, Karen wrote about the experience of living in Africa with affectionate brushstrokes, so why does Karen miss this past so much? What did she gain from her 17 years in Africa?
Karen's marriage was doomed to not be happy at the beginning, but after marriage, Karen still wanted to live a good life with her husband, but the baron only stayed in the outside world and did not want to be a good husband, and after 7 years, the two divorced peacefully.
After her divorce, Karen took charge of the huge farm on her own, slowly adjusted to life in Africa, and made three or two friends, including the most important person in her life, Dennis, a pioneer of 20th-century African hunting and flying adventures that has been called "incredibly handsome".
In the film, Karen describes Dennis this way in a voice full of nostalgia:
"He even hunted with a phonograph, three rifles, a month's supply, and Mozart."
Dennis is a spontaneous, well-rounded young man who loves the hot land of Africa and likes to wander and stay on the grasslands. There seems to be a gene for loving freedom, pursuing adventure, and being uninhibited. After a dinner party, they fell in love unsurprisingly.
Dennis takes Karen out hunting together, adventures together, and feels the pristine and natural vitality contained in the African continent, and Karen gradually falls in love with this exotic hot land from the initial fear of not adapting;
They danced under the stars, drank and chatted while camping, took a nap in the afternoon breeze, Dennis also flew a plane to take Karen to look at Africa from The perspective of God, to appreciate the heartbreaking and incomparably loving African continent, Karen touched and shook Dennis's hand, the beauty of that moment, I believe Karen will never forget!
After the relationship developed steadily, Karen hoped that Dennis could marry her, but Dennis was a person who was at ease with the situation and free above all else, and did not want to be bound by marriage:
"I don't get closer to you or love you more because of a piece of paper."
He stressed,
"It's not because I choose to be with you, it's that I love being with you."
But when Karen lost everything in Africa and planned to return to Europe, Dennis decided to give up his love and pursuit of freedom and return with Karen. True love is beyond doubt.
Despite fate, Dennis accidentally crashed and died two days before preparing to leave. The failure of the marriage, the loss of a lover, Karen's treatment is tragic enough for anyone.
Years later, however, Karen used the fountain pen Dennis gave her to tell the story of what she had seen in Africa in a passionate brushstroke:
The prairie, the sunset, the mountains, the rainbows, the antelopes, the lions, the eagles, the flamingos, and their love. Under the wind and clouds of paper, surging is a tidal wave of feelings, between the lines, full of infinite memories.
Chen Guo wrote a sentence in "Good Love":
Long-term love is falling in love with the same person again and again.
Even if it can't last forever, Karen already has the most beautiful love in the world, the most perfect lover.
She has loved, been happy, and seen the beauty of the world in this life, although it is not complete enough, but it is completely wonderful!
After coming to Kenya, Karen tried to integrate into the local area, and although her husband left home and left the farm alone, she did not complain about herself, but devoted herself to running the farm.
Every day, Karen toiled with her servants, as if she had completely forgotten that she had been a rich lady and a baroness who had no productive affairs; she did not treat her subordinates at the slightest master's command.
An indigenous boy who had a leg injury, she tried to persuade him and treat him, and later hired him; in order to make the local indigenous children able to go to school, she personally persuaded the chief, and then ran a school for the children, and hired a teacher.
Mother Teresa once said:
We can't do big things in the world, we can only do small things with great love.
These things Karen did may not be earth-shattering, but the kindness and love she had in her heart eventually melted her barrier from the local natives, changed their resistance to her, and won trust and respect.
When Karen returned to her home in Africa from Denmark for the second time, both adults and children crowded at the door to welcome Karen's return, her face full of happiness.
Later, a fire burned the farm to ashes, Karen went bankrupt, she was already a mud bodhisattva crossing the river, but she insisted on making proper arrangements for the natives before returning to Denmark, she ran around pleading, and even knelt down to the chief in public..... It shook the minds of all the white people present.
Before leaving, the club that had rejected Karen for not welcoming women had re-invited her, and when all the men present raised a glass to her, my heart also admired Karen.
At this time, Karen lost money and property, not to mention a baroness, but a failed and frustrated woman, but because of her noble personality, she gained the respect of the patriarchal society, which is the most difficult and proud for a woman.
Before going to Africa, Karen was just a vain, arrogant rich woman, and married a man who did not love her for a vain title, which doomed her to a later marriage.
But in the vast land of Africa, Karen has lived a new self: brave and strong, kind and loving, calm and calm.
In order to supply her husband who was fighting on the front line, she led the servants alone through the wilderness, and was attacked by a fierce lion on the way, but she bravely fought with it, and this tenacity made the men sigh;
In a foreign country, without any relatives around, and encountered marital misfortune, but Karen is not negative, let alone complaining, but chooses to start over and work hard to run the farm;
However, just before the harvest was about to be harvested, the manor accidentally caught fire, standing in front of the burning fire, Karen was undoubtedly desperate in her heart, but she did not cry, but just touched the head of the indigenous child next to her and said: Everything is gone.
Then he began to deal with everything calmly, dismissing the servants, selling the remaining possessions, and then saying goodbye to everything, and this composure was respectful.
The most valuable thing about people is that when the misfortunes of life ensue, they still have the courage to face the endgame.
Seventeen years ago, she was a baroness who believed that "I am what I have." She likes to emphasize: mine, mine, my title, my estate, my ivory, my porcelain, my husband, my lover, my cook, my native..."
After 17 years, she lost everything, health, marriage, farm, lover, and was separated from Africa forever, and finally understood Dennis's words:
We were just passers-by.
When she came, Karen came with a chest full of porcelain and crystals, and when she left, she was alone.
She seemed to have lost everything, and it was as if she had gained everything.
A loving lover, respected, tenacious personality, and memories that will never be forgotten.
"When I can't hold on, I think about the beauty of the past, although the cruelty makes me feel that I can still hold on to some of it, and then slowly I find that there is nothing that will make me unable to hold on." 」
In this wild land, Karen experienced all the blows that a woman could endure, but also found the true meaning of poetry and life, and gradually became a mature, independent, brave and strong woman.
04.
Karen's story reminds me of Sanmao, who also lived in Africa for many years, one wrote the famous "The Story of the Sahara", the other wrote "Out of Africa", different stories, but the same is that they have successfully made Africa a mysterious place that countless people yearn for.
In the film, There are vast grasslands, herds of zebra cattle, and blue skies, and each frame is a beautiful painting, primitive and magnificent, but shocking.
Although both Sanmao and Karen eventually left Africa, without exception, they were captured, comforted, and transformed into "spiritual natives" of the land. ”
For the rest of her life, Karen recalled the past years over and over again:
"I used to have a farm in Africa that grew coffee beans and treated black children. In Africa, I met a lover who fought for freedom, loved animals more than people, came to me, and fell in love; I once wrote a song in Africa, where there is a hot land that has passed away, where there is a pure morning dew. I'm always empty-handed because I've touched everything. I always set off again and again, because everywhere is in Africa. ”
This magical land of Africa nourished the heart of Karen Brixon, gave birth to a free, strong and independent soul, although it was still alone in the end, but it harvested an incomparably abundant inner.
Also like the British writer Janet What Winterson said:
Anything can be taken away at any time. Only what is inside is safe.
It's really ours, too. Inner abundance is always better than outward glitz.
Perhaps, this is the biggest inspiration that the film "Out of Africa" gives us.
Author: Xiao Wei, an early practitioner, one-on-one writing coach, a book-breaking helper. WeChat public number: Xiao Wei reads.
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