Karen

María Pérez Sanz, Spain, 2020

If a painted portrait on the wall could include the relationships, feelings, context, hopes and challenges of the subject’s life, it would look like this film.

Karen is a snapshot of Karen Blixen, Danish colonialist and author. Her life in Africa, based on her stories, is told in the 1985 Sydney Pollack film Out of Africa with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford (which I realise I’ve never seen, and now must watch).

And running at only 60 minutes, snapshot is the word. But it’s perfect. Pérez Sanz is most interested in the relationship between Karen and her African manservant, Farah. Karen’s husband is gone, she lives an isolated life on her coffee estate in Kenya (signified by a repeated theme of her eating alone in the dining room), but she and Farah share a common belief in destiny and God’s will.

Together they roam the Kenyan savanna (portrayed in an extraordinary performance by the scenery of Spain’s Extremadura region – honestly, you’d never guess). They talk, they sit in silence, the light dances, nothing dramatic happens… but it’s a film full of quiet depths.

With the screening as part of Barcelona’s D’A festival, we were treated to a post-film talk and Q&A with the director. These can so often be dull, I find, but this woman was lively and interesting, and finding out more about her thinking behind the film only added to it.

Pérez Sanz explained how they chose to use Spanish, instead of Danish or English, allowing the principal actor to focus on the character. (For the first 2 minutes, it was a little jarring, but then seemed very natural.)

She got to know Blixen through her writings (her books, diaries, and letters) then imagined how her everyday life might have been. And that the film was quite minimalist, with natural light and little music, was intentional, reflecting the kind of life Blixen led.

Towards the end of the film is the most masterful piece of editing and camerawork I’ve seen since the long shot through the window grille that closes Antonioni’s The Passenger.

Blixen turns in her chair and looks out through her window at the garden beyond. We look out on to the garden. After a long pause, what appears to be a Japanese tourist comes into shot in the distance and takes a photo of the house where we are sat. Then there are more tourists. We notice they are wearing trainers – we were in 1930 a minute ago!

It’s a time jump, and we have left Karen now. Fixed her in history. Hung the portrait on the wall. The final shots in the film are of tourists looking round Blixen’s old house.

I don’t know how wide a release this will get, but do catch it if you can. Other ones from D’A I’ve watched this week (online):

Ricochet, Rodrigo Fiallega, Mexico, 2020: A day with broken father/husband/immigrant Martijn in rural Mexico as he struggles with his health and the loss of his son. Engrossing and heart-breaking.

Estanislao, Alejandro Guzmán, Mexico, 2020: Strange people (one’s a man-bird monster) living on the edge of society in an abandoned textile factory in Mexico City. Peculiar yet fascinating.

After Love, Aleem Khan, UK, 2020: Mary converted to Islam to be with her husband Ahmed, and they lived in Dover where he worked captaining the cross-channel ferries. After his sudden death, she discovers his secret life in Calais. Poignant and complex.