"A Classic Adventure in the Literary Tradition of Holes."
A Far Off Place is a 1993 Kids' Wilderness Epic adventure film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Amblin Entertainment. The film stars Reese Witherspoon, Ethan Embry, Sarel Bok, and Maximilian Schell. Witherspoon plays Nonnie Parker, a South African girl raised on a game preserve. When her home is raided by poachers, Nonnie must trek across the Kalahari desert to the nearest town with Xhabbo, a bushman, and Harry, a visiting American teenager.The film is based on South African writer Laurens van der Post's works A Far Off Place (1974) and its prequel, A Story Like the Wind (1972). It was filmed in Namibia and Zimbabwe.
A Far Off Place contains examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: While trying to explain satellites to Xhabbo one night around a fire, Harry inadvertently ends up the Butt-Monkey.Harry: Yeah, a satellite. You know, television. Broadcasting.Xhabbo: Television?Harry: Yeah, television. See, it's this little box, and then you turn it on, and you can see pictures from all around the world.[Xhabbo starts laughing]Harry: When they walked on the moon, people all across the world saw it at the same time because of television.[Xhabbo laughs even harder]Harry: What’s so funny? [To Nonnie] Well, you tell him.Nonnie: [laughing] You tell him how it works. Tell him how you put the moon in that tiny, little box.Harry: See, the moon in the box isn't the real moon. It's a pattern of light transformed into electromagnetic waves.[Laughter continues and eventually Harry gives in too]
- Adaptation Expansion: A False Friend of the protagonist's family carrying out the massacre to hide his poaching operations and then pursuing the kids is made up for the film.
- Adaptational Badass: In the original novel, Nonnie only recently came to the region and is less experienced in desert survival, while her young male companion has lived there his whole life and knows the land well. This is reversed in the film.
- Adaptational Nationality: The male lead is American in the film but a native South African of French descent in the original novel duology.
- Adaptational Villainy: In the original book, the perpetrators of the Hunter's Drift massacre are rebel soldiers who are at least loyal to an ideal (even if it isn't portrayed too sympathetically). In the film, their actions are done to cover up a poaching operation and their leader is willing to kill people who view him as friends, including children.
- Africa Is a Country: Invoked by Mr. Parker during his disagreement with Ricketts.Ricketts: I really don't think you understand the kind of men you're dealing with.Mr. Parker: I understand they're butchering the soul of Africa.Ricketts: You talk like a bloody missionary.Mr. Parker: And why not? This is the last country with a soul.
- Animal Lover: Nonnie wants to follow in her father’s path as a wildlife commissioner who fights against elephant poaching.
- Artistic License – Geography: Nonnie reasons the trio must venture through the Kalahari desert to get to safety. In actuality, the nearest town isn’t 2000 kilometers away, and Cape Town is not too far off.
- Brutal Bird of Prey: Played for laughs when an ostrich chases after Harry.
- Canine Companion: Hintza.
- Colonel Badass: Colonel Theron, the rifle-wielding head of the anti-poaching patrols, regularly tracks down dangerous poachers (shooting two who draw guns on him in the opening scene) and leads the rescue efforts for the kids. He advocates a hard, no-nonsense approach to dealing with poachers that is at least partially vindicated by the murders of his more peaceful associates. According to the original novel, he was raised in the bush as the son of a Great White Hunter, became a hunter himself, was a modern Army Scout in a World War, and grew sick of killing people or animals after his military experiences.
- Cool, Clear Water: Xhabbo is able to extract water from a root and fills Nonnie and Harry’s canteens.
- Crossing the Desert
- Culture Clash / Language Barrier: Harry initially has difficulty adapting to life in his new environment.
- Deus ex Machina: When the teens collapse of thirst in the desert, they are coincidentally close to their destination—the seaport town of Karlstown. They are discovered by neighboring kids wandering around the dunes and are promptly taken to a hospital.
- Downer Beginning: This film starts with the protagonist's parents getting killed when poachers invade their African reserve along with an earlier scene when poachers kill animals.
- Eating Pet Food: Harry mistakes the cat food for pate in the beginning. When he finds out what he ate, he is so embarrassed he takes another bite.
- Evil Poacher: Ricketts and his henchmen. Ricketts has Nonnie’s parents murdered because they were investigating the illegal export of ivory, which he is involved in.
- Exact Words: Nonnie tells Harry that their trek for help is "pretty far" and points out this is technically true when he gets mad at her for not specifying that "pretty far" meant 2,000 kilometers.
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: The film’s violent scenes and murder plot were singled out by critics as being inappropriate for the kid audiences the film was aimed at.
- Going Native: Xhabbo teaches Harry to speak in his language and how to hunt gemsbok with a bow and arrow.
- In a Single Bound: After fighting off a pack of wild dogs, Hintza completes a long leap across a ravine to join his humans.
- Kick the Dog: The opening scene is a particularly brutal one depicting poachers shooting elephants. The poachers manage to kill a few of them and are shown sawing off their ivory tusks. A baby elephant is mourning its slain parent.
- Native Guide: Xhabbo, a native bushman and Nonnie’s friend, helps the two escape the poacher and guides them through the desert.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: While crossing through a swamp, the kids encounter a crocodile.
- No Animals Were Harmed: A disclaimer at the beginning states:“All animals in this production were trained with care and concern for their safety and well-being. Scenes which appear to be harmful to them were simulated.”
- Outfit Decoy: Harry gets an idea to evade the Big Bad by using decoy bodies. He blurts out his idea to a confused Nonnie by saying,
“Take off your clothes." - Scary Scorpions: Xhabbo gets badly injured by a scorpion sting.
- Scenery Porn: The shots of the savanna, plains, desert sand dunes, and sunsets earned wide praise.
- Seers: Xhabbo tells Nonnie to stay in the cave, saying he got a bad premonition from a vision.
- Serendipitous Survival / Plot-Triggering Death: Nonnie and Harry avert the same fate as their parents because they stayed in a cave that night.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Xhabbo can communicate with elephants and instructs them to follow behind so they can cover the trio’s tracks.
- Spoiled Brat: Harry is a stuck-up rick kid from New York City. When first arriving in South Africa, he asks if there’s any concerts, basketball games, or movie theaters out there and whines about not having access to a satellite dish or VCR.
- Tagline:
- "A far off land. A far off journey. A far off adventure."
- "An adventure of courage, fate and the will to survive."
- "Thrown together on an incredible African adventure, they have only one hope for survival...each other."
- Take My Hand!: Harry tries to cross a ravine using a fallen tree as a bridge, but the tree gets loose and Xhabbo and Nonnie have to save Harry by holding onto him.
- Thirsty Desert: The trio are able to access water when Xhabbo extracts a root he finds, but that only takes them so far. The kids eventually collapse from thirst and Nonnie starts seeing mirages.
- Token Trio: The three young protagonists are two white kids (a boy and a girl) and their Kalahari bushman friend.
- Too Dumb to Live: Ricketts runs back into the cave trying to save his ivory collection, knowing the cave has been lined with dynamite and the fuse has been lit.
- "Ugly American" Stereotype: Harry, who bungles Xhabbo's name and is initially closed-minded.
- Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Gender inverted, as Harry is the prissy one here to Nonnie’s outdoorsy tomboy.
- Weather Manipulation: Just when the trio are close to being captured by Ricketts in his helicopter, Xhabbo and Nonnie summon a sandstorm through the Bushman practice of “tapping”. The sandstorm grows stronger and Ricketts is forced to flee.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Nonnie is a resourceful Action Girl who manages to off some poachers by rigging their truck with dynamite.
