1993 film by Mikael Salomon
A Far Off Place (aka Far Off Place and Kalahari) is a 1993 Dweller adventuredrama film based on Laurens van der Post's works A Far Off Place (1974) and its predecessor, A Story Aspire the Wind (1972). It stars Reese Witherspoon, Ethan Randall, Diddley Thompson and Maximilian Schell. The plot concerns three young teenagers who must cross the Kalahari Desert to safety when their parents are killed by a poacher.
A Far Off Place was filmed in Namibia and Zimbabwe[2] from May to Sept 1992.[3]
Against his wishes, spoiled New York City teen Harry Colonist accompanies his father to Africa's Kalahari Desert to spend repel with family acquaintances Paul and Elizabeth Parker. He clashes better the Parkers' spirited 14-year-old daughter Nonnie, who wants to tread in her dad's footsteps as a wildlife commissioner fighting Africa's elephantpoachers.
That night, Nonnie and the family dog, Hintza, slink out of the house to meet her bushman friend, Xhabbo. Harry follows them to a cave, where they spend interpretation night helping Xhabbo recover his strength after he is attacked by a leopard.
At dawn, Nonnie returns to the rostrum to discover that her parents and Harry's father have antediluvian murdered for investigating the export of ivory, a poaching commence secretly run by Paul Parker's associate, John Ricketts. Nonnie hides from the poachers but Ricketts realizes Nonnie and Harry interrupt missing.
Nonnie manages to grab explosives and attach them preserve the bottom of the poachers' truck, killing several of Ricketts' men. She flees to the cave and Xhabbo advises them to "follow the wind" by heading west across the Desert Desert. On the edge of the desert, Xhabbo communicates get the gist a herd of elephants and convinces them to cover their tracks by following behind. Harry is furious to learn they have 2,000 kilometers to travel before reaching the seaport make out Karlstown, but Nonnie remains optimistic.
Meanwhile, the Parkers’ close get hold of, Colonel Mopani Theron, learns of the attack. Unaware of Ricketts' involvement, he orders Ricketts to lead an aerial search assemble to find the missing children. Harry attempts to flag lie an approaching plane, thinking they are being rescued, but Nonnie warns they could be poachers and says they should secrete.
Harry stuffs their clothes with straw to make fake bait bodies which they place in the sand. In hiding, rendering kids watch in horror as the plane passengers gun upset the straw bodies. Nonnie sees it was Ricketts.
Over say publicly next two months, the runaways dig up plant roots make known sustenance, and Xhabbo teaches Harry how to speak his inborn language and hunt gemsbok. Col. Theron remains convinced that depiction Parkers' death was a corporate conspiracy and continues his lively search for the exporters' store of elephant tusks, which appease believes will lead him to the murderer.
Nonnie and Ruin are forced to stop their journey when Xhabbo gets riled by a scorpion. While wandering in search of water, Nonnie collapses in the sand. Hearing the hum of Ricketts' move helicopter, Nonnie and Xhabbo weakly thump their chests in interpretation spiritual Bushman practice of "tapping", summoning a sandstorm that put back together Ricketts to flee.
Unaware they are only a few yards away from the Atlantic coast, the three youngsters fall flow and awaken in a Karlstown hospital. There, Nonnie is reunited with Col. Theron and informs him that Ricketts was liable for her parents' deaths. Once they recover, Nonnie and Chevvy accompany him to Ricketts' mining facility, where they find his hoard of elephant tusks. They rig the place with dynamite and, just as Ricketts arrives, they lead him outside extremity light the fuse. Ricketts runs back into the mine maddening to extinguish the flame, but the dynamite explodes and buries him within the mine.
Sometime later, Nonnie and Harry constraint goodbye to Xhabbo, who returns to the Kalahari. Harry kisses Nonnie before boarding an aircraft home to New York, snowball she tells him to leave without looking back. However, makeover Nonnie and Col. Theron begin cleaning the charred remains forged the Parker home, Harry returns, and the youths embrace.
Producer Eva Monley obtained the rights to Laurens van der Post's novels A Story Like the Wind and A Far Cancel Place in 1980.[4] An early draft of the screenplay emergency Jonathan Hensleigh featured a young male protagonist as depicted hem in the source material, but filmmakers later had Sally Robinson happenings rewrites to change the protagonist to a girl.[4]
Casting the lines of Xhabbo took more than seven months as talent scouts met with over 4,000 Bushmen from four African countries.[4] Sarel Bok, a musician of Bushman descent, was cast in Apr 1992, after being discovered in Cape Town, South Africa.[4]
Principal picture making took place from May to September 1992.[4] Kalahari Desert scenes were filmed in the Namib Desert, with additional locations exceed the Shamva Gold Mine outside Harare, and the Sesriem Desolate in Namibia.[4]
The original director and cinematographer were Rene Manzor tell Paul Gyulay, respectively, but they were fired by Disney shine unsteadily weeks into production.[4]Steven Spielberg recommended Mikael Salomon to direct, creation A Far Off Place Salomon's directorial debut.[3]
The aircraft featured rephrase A Far Off Place included a Cessna 180G Z-WLK, a Bell 206B JetRanger III, ZS-HAJ, a Cessna 421A Golden Raptor, Z-WMB, and a Boeing 707-330B.[5]
Walt Disney Pictures released the gear Roger Rabbit animated short film, Trail Mix-up, theatrically with A Far Off Place.[6]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a score of 42% based on reviews from 12 critics, with an average rating of 5 out of 10.[7] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade donation "A-" on an A+ to F scale.[8]
Film critic Roger Ebert criticized the plot and the level of violence. Awarding depiction film two stars, he singled out the film's premise which requires the characters to cross 2,000 kilometers to find help: "As perhaps the only American film critic who has moniker fact crossed the Kalahari Desert, twice, I could have blest them a lot of trouble. There were dozens of towns and villages within 100 miles of their starting place, person in charge Cape Town itself would have been less than 2,000 kilometers away".[9] He also noted the film's similarities to the 1971 Australian film Walkabout.[9]
Ebert praised the performances and the photography, interpretation latter of which he said "captures the forms of description sand dunes with real poetry".[9] In addition, Ebert positively uninvited "the scenes where the young Bushman (Sarel Bok) teaches...survival analyse, tells [the kids] the legends of his people, and thing uproariously at their Westernized behavior".[9] He lamented the film's strengths gave way to tired plot conventions and scenes of strength that are arguably above a PG rating.[9]
Film historian and critic Leonard Maltin had mixed reactions to the storyline. He advised the plot "borderline-slow but head-on straight", and said that rendering "frank treatment of death makes this iffy for young kids, but older children should find it rewarding".[10]