A Far Off Place
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Movie Reviews of A Far Off Place
Movie Review: Postmodern American Teenyboppers meet Shaka Zulu
Summary: 1 Stars
Well, this was about as formulaically politically correct as a movie can get, unfortunately: the female teenage protagonist (played by Witherspoon, whose acting powers have increased dramatically since her stilted acting here) acts masculine and heroic, the male teenage protagonist acts craven and flippant. At one ridiculous point, the girl runs around acting like a commando, a veritable one-gal army, blowing up the bad guys, while the boy hides in a cave sniveling. Later, when the boy tries to assert himself by offering to carry the gal's backpack as they cross a desert, the gal snaps at him, Bella Abzug-style, and walks quickly ahead, leaving him in the dust. Clearly a modern radical feminist thing going on here, and what is most unfortunate is that this movie was made for a young audience and therefore is in keeping with the modern radical feminist propaganda which is brainwashing young women into unnaturally behaving like men. Of course, in the real world, the result for such manly girls, once they become women, is that men do not choose them and they remain alone, and therefore become bitter--ironically and inevitably blaming men, of course. In this movie, the wimpy teenage guy falls for the brassy, masculine gal--but that's why they call them movies. When are these post-modern writers, artists, and other culture-shapers with an agenda going to realize that when they tout modern radical feminism, they are touting something unnatural--men simply do not prefer masculine females. Men want someone to COMPLEMENT them, not COMPETE with them. Men crave FEMININITY in females, not FEMINISM. Wow, is there ever a difference in those two forms of comportment! This poor teenage guy depicted in this movie, at least his character does progress a little bit: by the end of the movie, instead of craven and flippant, he graduates to something akin to a metrosexual-type with a wild-boy haircut, if that is even a step upward. But the plucky gal--she's still the one in charge in this fictitious world of upside-down gender relations.
Uh, another problem with this movie--and there are many--is when the kids are going through the Kalahari Desert, something which should be, and for a time is here depicted as, a foreboding and life-threatening task. Yet we see Witherspoon in this desert frolicking with a dog; and we see the boy's flippancy and joviality emerge in a totally out-of-place manner, considering the dire situation they are in. The sense of urgency which had been built up is totally excreted away by these light-hearted, inane scenes.
Look, I dig Disney kid movies--more realistic ones. You know, old style Disney movies. You take "Old Yeller" for example. Now there was a quality kid movie, and quite true to life.
This movie was not. It had a plastic, spoiled-American-materialistic-teenybopper feel throughout. Disney has gone down the tubes. In any number of ways, they've been subverted by radical Marxist agendas (Note: One more of these was the fact that an African Bushman was allowed to evince a pagan ritual from his PC pagan religion--something called "tapping," while the Caucasians were of course not shown evincing any sign of their un-PC Judeo-Christian religion--this is bias, folks, leftwing, PC bias, same as the aforementioned feminist bilge). I am learning to run, not walk, away from Disney stuff, and this movie was further cause for me to do so.
Movie Review: Warning! Spoiler: The irony of the Disney world view
Summary: 1 Stars
Disney does it again! They manage to turn two beautiful, compelling books into a story of squabbling American adolescents. I find it supremely ironic that Disney felt it necessary to turn a murderous troop of Marxist guerrillas into a murderous, greedy mining agent - this from one of the most devouring, money-hungry corporations in the history of capitalism! Did they perhaps believe that depicting a troop of black soldiers ruthlessly slaughtering the boy's family wouldn't be as politically correct (or as comprehensible to a pre-teen or early teen audience) as showing a greedy white mining agent ruthlessly slaughtering the boy's family? Of course, Francois Joubert simply has to be transformed into the obnoxious Harry Winslow (to make the movie more appealing to an American audience). And must every story involving young people of opposite sexes be turned into a "Girls are stupid! - Boys are stupider! - I love you! - I love you too!" tale of teenage battle of the sexes turned to love? It's been many years since I read the novels, but I don't remember that particular twist to the story, perhaps because Van der Post wasn't necessarily writing for the 11-14-year-old American market. If you're at all disenchanted with the world as Mickey sees (and sanitizes) it, skip the movie and read the books ("A Story Like the Wind" and "A Far Off Place").Movie Review: Vast Mis-Representation of Laurens van der Post
Summary: 1 Stars
The novels of Laurens van der Post were based in the deeper reality of the African bush of the times of his writings. From the very beginning this film is untrue of his novels. Lonnie from the books, was a young boy-man who was a hunter of the first order, but based in the honor of code of the bush and its ways. Lonnie was never in the bush without his gun. In the movie the character does not have a rifle. Without Lonnie's own bush prowess, they, including the bushman would not have survived the ordeal of the African political factions and conditions of the forced initiations into manhood that he was faced with. Lonnie was a classical hero in every sense of the word and was never a twittering kid type as portrayed in the move. In van der Post's books Lonnie was forced to kill men to survive. Childen of a young age will like this film... its fairy tale, not reality. Those who respect the profound depth of van der Post's writing will be betrayed by this film.Movie Review: Read the books instead
Summary: 1 Stars
This film is interesting and somewhat effective as a piece of cinema. That said, its story is so far removed from van der Post's indiosyncratic novels (upon which the film is ostensibly based) as to be almost unrecognizable. Only one connection to the two novels remains: both the film and the books are set in Africa. Beyond that, just about every other element of the books' narratives has been changed, usually so that the film follows some shallow Hollywood plotline, but at the expense of van der Post's encyclopedic knowledge and love of Bushman life and culture. As a result, the film is watchable, but its destruction of the novels is almost as complete as the razing of Hunters Drift by poachers in the film version.Movie Review: ANYONE HEAR OF Nick Roeg's WALKABOUT 1971 ???
Summary: 1 Stars
How could anyone with half a knowledge of film even warrant this "A FAR OFF PLACE" from being anything but a trite, boring, horrible film and poorly made rip off from the 1971 film WALKABOUT? The original 1971 film story and might I add original novel is "Two children are stranded in the Australian outback and are forced to cope on their own until they meet an Aborigine who helps them across the desert".PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, ignore the horrible film "A Far Off Place" and see the original film made 20 years before. (...)