In theaters

NOWHERE IN AFRICA, written and directed by Caroline Link, based on the novel by Stefanie Zweig, 138 minutes, rated R, in German with English subtitles. Now playing Movie City 8, Bangor.

Caroline Link’s excellent, Academy Award-winning foreign-language film, “Nowhere in Africa,” follows the recent “Shanghai Ghetto” and “The Pianist” in exposing another harrowing corner of the Holocaust, stripping it bare of sentiment but, in this case, not of a sense of humor.

Based on a true story, the film follows three German Jews – father, mother, daughter – who flee Frankfurt for the rural flatlands of East Africa in the long, turbulent days leading up to the Nazi stronghold.

It’s 1938. One member of the family leaves Germany first – Walter Redlich (Merab Ninidze), the patriarch of the group, who arrives in Kenya to find work at a cattle ranch before sending for his wife, Jettel (Juliane Kohler of “Aimee and Jaguar”) and young daughter, Regina (Lea Kurka).

When Jettel and Regina arrive on boat, it’s with the belief that all this unpleasantness will be behind them within a year. Two years tops.

As such, Jettel refuses to fully unpack – why bother to find room for the china when their trip will be relatively brief?

Removing from her bags only what she believes she’ll need – such as an elaborate gown, which suggests this striking woman has no idea what awaits her in this barren land – she bulldozes through her new shack of a house with the disdain of someone more used to throwing parties than throwing mosquito nets around her bed at night.

Jettel isn’t unlikable – far from it. However, she is complex, an alien in a foreign country struggling to come to terms with the difficulty of her circumstances.

That she loves her daughter is clear. Also clear is that her strained relationship with Walter could crumble at any moment. Indeed, part of the film’s underlying tension comes from the lingering doubt that this man and this woman – this family – will be able to remain intact through the defining years to come.

You certainly hope so, if only for the sake of Regina, a special girl who is deeply shy when she leaves Germany, but who finds in Africa a place and a people that help to round her into a remarkable young woman (played by Karoline Eckertz), one whose relationship with the family cook, Owuor (Sidede Onyulo), is among the movie’s best qualities.

Winner of five German Film Awards, including Best Picture, and beautifully acted by a great cast, “Nowhere in Africa” deals honestly with the past, refusing to romanticize the proceedings and thus ask us to feel something that’s false and manufactured.

With some exceptions, that’s the difference between a film made with a European mindset and one made with a Hollywood mindset, the latter of which is more inclined to pat our hands when all is said and done in an effort to reassure us that all is okay with the world.

Directors like Caroline Link know better, and in her work, you find electrifying jolts of the truth.

Grade: A

On video and DVD

BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE, directed by Adam Shankman, written by Jason Filardi, 105 minutes, PG-13.

Adam Shankman’s “Bringing Down the House” stars Queen Latifah as the wrecking ball, always a good bet these days, particularly after she knocked ’em dead with her Academy Award-nominated performance in “Chicago.”

This time out, Latifah is Charlene Morton, a salty broad on the wrong side of the law trying to clear her name in a muddy robbery rap.

As produced by Latifah from a script by Jason Filardi, the film exclusively uses racial stereotypes, both white and black, to fuel its comedy. Everyone here plays the race card, using it to wink broadly at those stereotypes while also skewering them.

In the film, Steve Martin is Peter Sanderson, a recently divorced Los Angeles tax attorney cruising Internet chat rooms in an effort to find new love.

His ex-wife (Jean Smart) and kids would love if it he came home, but Peter has another agenda. He’s just met Charlene, a woman who, if he can believe the photo she sent, seems to be just what he’s seeking – a blond, Ivy-educated sexpot with the heart and soul of a poet. In short order, they set a date to meet and – surprise, surprise – the Charlene who appears on Peter’s doorstep is no natural blond.

What she is is a hip-hop cross between Pearl Bailey and Nel Carter, a recently escaped convict who has decided that Peter is the man who will solve all of her current legal woes. And if he doesn’t? Let’s just say that Charlene has the kind of moxie it takes to destroy Peter’s life – and also enough black soul to shake up and loosen his repressed, inner-white child.

Borrowing from a wealth of other movies, from “You’ve Got Mail” and “Housesitter” to “Jungle Fever” and “Bulworth” – a comedy that also played the race card and scored an Academy Award nomination in the process – “Bringing Down the House” culls most of its big laughs from the Queen herself, but also from Eugene Levy as her jive-talking suitor and Betty White as the wealthy racist next door.

Grade: B

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.