I know this is given the genre of Documentary, or as it is also stated in some reviews and recaps as "Ethnography," but I take this so completely into a work of fictional/dramatized recreations of whatever these Hauka movement rituals are that it enters into the realm of some bizarre otherworldly dream or even a collective hallucination. Everything that these tribes people are doing is so heightened and manic that it turns into this grotesque madhouse comedy version of a ritual, and it isn't just from the people on screen but how Rouch cuts and edits it all.
Is it offensive? Shrug. Maybe there's a Bizarro-world MAGA version of me who is also watching this as part of 1001 Movies List and Googling "they're eating the dogs" etc and freaking out. For me, all of the foaming mouths I take to be a goof on Colonialism - if that indeed is the aim of what these folks are up to - by donning all of these ridiculous clothes and doing all of these ludicrous contortions. It is disturbing to see that it is dog being cooked, but this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that at least there isn't footage of the poor good girl or boy being slaughtered. And this is presented all so wild and crazy that if you told me it was not dog at all, I'd believe you just the same.
I can't say I learned really much at all (albeit it was a little difficult to follow given the hit and miss captions on the YouTube video), and it took reading a few reviews to get the gifst; but it was original and hypnotic as a short experimental film as much if not more than a documentary, and that's not nothing.
