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‘Wonder Woman’s’ Connie Nielsen Drills Down on Portraying ‘Out Of Africa’ Author Karen Blixen in ‘The Dreamer’
John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentA Canneseries main competition contender, “The Dreamer – Becoming Karen Blixen” begins with a voiceover from Connie Nielsen (“Gladiator,” “Wonder Woman”) reading, in beautifully cadenced Danish, a letter ‘Out of Africa’ author Karen Blixen writes to her mother in 1931.In it, she expresses the joy Africa has given her, that the family farm she ran has gone bankrupt, and she will soon take her life.Exquisite shots of Africa play out, meanwhile, on the screen.It this mix of lush period detail and big production value and a harder economic edge and sustained portrait of a woman’s sentiments and soul – through read letters, dialog confession and Nielsen’s central commanding central performance – that sets “The Dreamer” apart. Developed from a concept by Nielsen, “The Dreamer” begins when Blixen near ends, economically and emotionally bankrupt after her farm fails and her soulmate, as she calls English aristocrat Denys Finch Hatton, dies in an air crash at Kenya’s Voi Airport.Her suicide fails.
