filmlefou

4/4 "Life is sacks" says young Nigerien immigrant Oumarou Ganda in Jean Rouch's most controversial scene from his 1958 ethnofiction film Moi, un noir. Oumarou — who under his pseudonym Edward G. Robinson (An actor, Double Indemnity, The Ten Commandments) — tells us of his conquests with European women and his travels to exotic locations. Rouch then cuts to the implied truth: Oumarou unloading sacks from a cargo ship. Oumarou is consumed by a life of poverty and meaniality, he's tired of carrying sacks. He has aspirations, he has dreams, and with Moi, un noir an improvised docu-fiction piece he finds a way to live out his fantasy.