MOVIE REVIEW : A Classic Adventure Tale From ‘A Far Off Place’

Disney’s “A Far Off Place” (citywide), a wondrous African adventure epic, opens with a succinct pre-credit sequence showing poachers slaughtering elephants for their tusks. It then launches its story with so little exposition we know no more what’s happening than do its two 14-year-olds, Nonnie (Reese Witherspoon) and Harry (Ethan Randall), who promptly find themselves fleeing for their lives over the Kalahari Desert, accompanied by a young Bushman named Xhabbo (Sarel Bok).

Judging from their accents, Nonnie and her parents (Robert Burke, Patricia Kalember) seem to be either Americans or Canadians, living in a present-day unnamed African country in a landed gentry splendor recalling the colonial era. Nonnie’s father, however, is a progressive who operates his estate in partnership with the natives.

It is his vociferous protests of elephant poaching, an illegal but enormously lucrative enterprise, that propels his daughter and Harry to head for the desert. Freshly arrived from New York with his own father for a visit with Nonnie’s family, Harry hasn’t even had time to change out of his preppy blue blazer and khakis before he’s trudging through sand with Nonnie and Xhabbo.

Right away “A Far Off Place,” which was adapted from two Laurens van der Post books, announces that it’s a different kind of family film, aiming for older children and adults. Its PG rating is appropriate: That pre-credit sequence--and some subsequent events--are too brutal for small children, and its narrative throughout is too elliptical not to confuse little kids. Still, the film does leave us wishing for more information along the way, specifically about the young people. who after all have just met, and their families. However, its strategy of not letting us know much more than do the teen-agers and their bushman friend pays off in generating suspense and uncertainty. Indeed, you may well find yourself as shocked as they are at learning the identity of their enemy and pursuer.

Much of the film is taken up with the 1,000-plus miles trek, at once a display of Xhabbo’s ancient survival wisdom and a testing of the children’s resilience and capacity to mature. But the film is shrewdly structured so that as time goes on it can provide respite from a gorgeous but potentially monotonous landscape by increasingly cutting away to events that could determine whether or not Nonnie and Harry live or die should they make it across the Kalahari.

Clearly, director Mikael Salomon, in his theatrical feature film debut, has resisted taking the easy way out at every turn. That Salomon comes to directing as a formidably gifted Oscar-nominated cinematographer (for the undersea “Abyss” and also for “Backdraft’s” scary visual effects) doubtlessly accounts for the film’s intense sense of the visual. Africa is always the most photogenic of locales, and through the lens of Juan Ruiz-Anchia’s camera the Kalahari’s sand dunes--it’s actually the Namib Desert--take on a superb sculptured look.

The film constantly engages your heart as well as your eyes, and its images are counterpointed by James Horner’s magnificent score, ever-shimmering and majestic, supplying emotion and even narrative force throughout.

Meanwhile, Witherspoon and Randall emerge as very likable young people, smart and resourceful--and on the brink of first love and sexual attraction. Bok’s Xhabbo lends a witty, gentle presence. Elsewhere are Jack Thompson and Maximilian Schell, both friends of Nonnie’s father and eager to find out what happened to her and Harry.

As a historic collaboration between Disney and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, “A Far Off Place” (rated PG for violence and mild language) spins its tale filled with all the traditional adventure elements with the utmost sophistication.

‘A Far Off Place’

Reese Witherspoon: Nonnie Parker

Ethan Randall: Harry Winslow

Jack Thompson: John Ricketts

Sarel Bok: Xhabbo

Maximilian Schell Col. Mopani Theron

A Buena Vista release of a Walt Disney Pictures and Amblin Entertainment presentation in association with Touchwood Pacific Partners I. Director Mikael Salomon. Producers Eva Monley, Elaine Sperber. Executive producers Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Gerald R. Molen. Screenplay by Robert Caswell, Jonathan Hensleigh and Sally Robinson; based on the books “A Story Like the Wind” and “A Far Off Place” by Laurens van der Post. Cinematographer Juan Ruiz-Anchia. Editor Ray Lovejoy. Costumes Rosemary Burrows. Music James Horner. Production design Gemma Jackson. Art directors Carine Tredgold, Jonathan McKinstry. Set decorator Ian White. Sound Colin Charles. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG (violence and mild language).