May 17, 2000 -- Maybe it is a sign of the times, or maybe it is just bad filmmaking, but "I Dreamed of Africa" seems more like a series of short vignettes than it does a story, and it seems more like a series related scenes than it does a movie.

Based on a true story, it stars Kim Basinger ("L.A. Confidential") as Kuki Gallmann, a woman who heads off to the wilds of Africa after her sheltered life in Europe is shattered by a tragic car crash. She marries the dashing Paolo Gallmann (played by European actor Vincent Perez) and they head to Africa with her son, Emanuele (Liam Aiken of "Stepmom").

Things go badly in Africa, there are tragic deaths, storms, poachers killing animals, the marriage is shaky, but through it all, Kuki perservers. Most movies about Africa, indeed most movies about nature, tend to romanticize nature and they anthropomorphize animals. These are basic tenets of environmentalism and Hollywood loves these themes. This movie is different. It does not romanticize nature, and the animals are just animals. They live and die, they kill and are killed, just like humans.

The idea of the movie is that Africa is life, and therefore big and powerful and indifferent to the affairs of men. The problem is, that the film doesn't really prove that point. It doesn't really illustrate why Kuki is so attracted to this place, except for some really great scenery overlooking the Great Rift (hut w/great view f/sale!). Instead of adapting to the land, the Gallmans plant grass around their house and run sprinklers so they can have a lawn, just like any house in suburbia. They have a house and garden, and friends who throw European-style parties. Family members come to visit, flown in by airplane. Emanuele is shipped off to a British-style boarding school, to be taught how to be a proper English gentlemen. I'm sorry, but that isn't really roughing it. The natives who live nearby in grass huts, they are roughing it. If the film had shown the actors getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, it would have been more convincing. That's real nature.

The film tries to string this story together through a number of related scenes, but the transitions are jerky and there seems to be little continuity. Kuki's mother, Franca (played by Eva Marie Saint who has appeared mostly on TV during last 30 years or so) stays in Europe, but visits often enough that it seems she stops by every couple of weeks or so. We know it is sometimes years between visits, but because of the film's odd construction, it seems a lot more often than that. I found myself wondering why she didn't just stay. Kuki could use the company. Perhaps the lack of smooth transitions is the wave of the future.

It's like MTV, another departure from the standard Hollywood method of making films. First you have "Armageddon" in which the camera never holds a shot for more than three seconds, now, with "I Dreamed of Africa," you have a film which throws transitional scenes right out the window. O Brave New World! Yuk, this film rates a C-.

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