Africa addio

Africa Addio, is an Italian film with English subtitles. The film is a documentary about Africa, including scenes of animals being poached, a civil war and a revolution and a bunch of tribes being slaughtered. The film came out in Italy in 1966 and then came to North America in 1970 entitled Africa: Blood And Guts, and had 37 minutes cut from it's running time. Winner of The David Award for Best Production at The David Di Donatello Awards. The version I saw of the film was the 139 minute director's cut. The film is a very good looking film with great cinematography and production design. The film is also very interesting and is very powerful and disturbing with some of the images it shows us. After awhile the film started to feel long though and felt like it dragged on a little bit too much the last half hour or so. Some parts were also a little confusing but generally this is an entertaining, interesting and powerful film that is just as shocking now as it was in the 60's.

Both terrifying and fascinating are the words that sprang up in my mind as I was watching the movie.

It's fascinating that the record of atrocities made to humans and animals in Africa existed already in the sixties. Just as those atrocities were happening. Today, fifty years later, we are only made aware post festum that something like that was happening and happened, but it is like some distant point in the past. If you think Iraq war in the nineties was the first 'live' feed of (war) terror from the other side of the world, think again. And try to find this movie. The movie maybe is not 'live' feed in the most rigid sense of the word, but it is a contemporary document of something that shouldn't have happened. And, what is worse, is still happening today.

And terrifying? Well, you just have to see the movie.

I watched this film last month and I was blown away. In the documentary form, some film makers use a narrator while others let the subjects tell the story in their own words. This film uses bold and dynamic cinematography to tell this gripping and sadly true tale in a way more powerful than any other narrative format. This movie was filmed using a variety of 16mm and 35mm motion pictures cameras. Virtually all of the shots are hand held and I was not surprised to later learn the the Director of Photography was awarded an Oscar for one of his previous works. I spent the summer of 2002 touring Africa and I stayed in a few of the locations shown in this film. I was amazed to see the splendor of the cities in this film which stood in stark contrast to the squalid ruins I witness less than forty years after this masterpiece was made. It was amazing to see how beautiful and vibrant these areas once were. Now it's a wasteland were life is both short and very cheap. This film is pure genius. It also represents a cautionary tale to other peoples of what can happen when the political and economic stability of a society dissipates. Also, one can't help but realize the severe consequences visited upon those naive souls who traded their prosperity, freedoms and security with the avid encouragement of those lefty do-gooders who led them down the path of ruin in the name of "casting away the chains of imperialism." After the continent imploded, these would be social engineers disappeared in the dark of night returning to their homes in London, New York and Paris to see what other societies they could ruin with their idealogical snake oil. They, by default, left to other the impossible task of cleaning up their mess.

The democracy our hapless African brothers and sisters thought they would receive never materialized and when their paternalistic European guardians left, most of these people suffered under the most brutal forms totalitarianism, crime, starvation and tribal genocide. They jumped blindfolded from their frying pans and landed in the fire. Would anyone dare say they are better off today then they were forty years ago? Food for thought.

Sent to Africa to make the next Mondo Cane movie the film makers found themselves in the middle of several revolutions. What they would film would form the basis of a damning attack on everyone, both black and white, involved in the shift in power on the Dark Continent.

I've watched the three versions of this film and I'm a fan of all of them. Interestingly the one I like the least is the original cut of the film which has several snide comments and re-dubbed voices that make the film truly rude and cruel for no good reason. The original cut goes out of its way to have a holier than thou view that is missing from both of the English cuts. The original cut also has several more minutes of animal cruelty that is completely uncalled for.

This film ran into serious trouble upon its original release because charges were brought, though later found to be false, that the film makers had paid some of the soldiers to kill some one so that they could film it. (this charge would form the basis for The Wild Eye, a fictional film about the making of a mondo movie made by another Mondo Cane director) Considering all of the the death and destruction in this film I find it hard to believe that anyone would have had to have been paid to kill anyone.

Yes, its a tough film, but it leaves no one with clean hands, even the film makers.

See this film. It will make you think.

This is the ONLY example of which I'm aware where the complete loss of a film is ignored by all media and critics. I saw this documentary on its original release in, I believe, 1967. It was very disturbing because of the miles of animal bones and bodies it displayed. It squarely placed the blame on both the whites AND the black native inhabitants. And the latter is, imho, the reason this film has disappeared. You can't find the lousiest, most edited version, let alone the original. And this movie was made by Academy Award winners for an earlier foreign film, so it's not like it was just a throwaway cheepie.