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Popular Culture Review
ABC’s Survivor: Africa that actually was filmed in Kenya. A Christian movie
review website did term the film, “Entertaining and beautiful,” but issued a caveat
about the film being too “New Age. Kim Basinger believed (in the movie) that
we become everything once we die. The trees, etc.”16 What could have Hugh
Hudson and the producers of this mistake been thinking?
Maybe they thought that since true life stories of white, western women
confronting “untamed” Africa—Born Free, Gorillas in the Mist, and of course
Out o f Africa come to mind—have received the Hollywood epic treatment, why
not have I Dreamed o f Africa receive the same lush and exotic setting? There is
even a scene where Kuki buzzes the wildlife and soars over the Kenyan landscape
in a plane containing the coffin of her late husband ala Meryl Streep and a live
Robert Redford in Out of Africa. Nothing appeals as much to Hollywood as a
tried and tested sequel. But I Dreamed o f Africa only proved that vainglorious
directors and stars such as Hugh Hudson and Kim Basinger should stay out of
Africa altogether. Kuki Gallmann herself still lives on those 100,000 acres of
land at Ol Ari Nyiro (“the place of dark waters” in Masai) where through the
Gallmann Foundation she has launched a crusade to conserve African wildlife and
traditions. (In the film, sadly, the animal conservation issue gets totally lost.) She
has also become a self-appointed spokesman for Kenya and has acquired Kenyan
nationality. The centerpiece of the foundation, her memorial to Paolo and
Emanuele, is the Laikipia Wilderness Education Centre, where more than 1,000
children a year-principally African children-come to observe and learn about
wildlife. “The majority of Africans,” Kallmann says, “have never seen an
elephant, and those who live in close proximity to the animals will probably
regard them as a threat to their crops.”17 It was to promote the work of the
foundation that she agreed to turn her book into a film. When the book came out
in 1991 she says she received more than two dozen film offers, but refused them
all:
I felt that what has happened to me was too dose. There is a
dignity in a book; it is a conversation with one person. But
hundreds of people watching on a big screen, chewing gum and
eating popcom-I didn’t know if I wanted that. But eventually I
grew to the understanding that I’m a spokesman. A film can
talk to an audience and make them aware.18
In fact she regards the film “as a commercial for Kenya,” which is truly
ironic: the film company was unable to get insurance coverage for the stars to
work in Kenya, so the principle cinematography was done in South Africaalthough Hudson did use the Ol Ari Nyiro for some location scenes.19
A commercial for Kenya indeed. Whatever the motives behind them,
movies shot in Kenya, or even set in Kenya but shot somewhere else, have the