Africa Addio

All my reviews will contain spoilers. Just so you know.

I knew practically nothing about mondo movies and had never seen one all the way through before this one – there, I’ve said it. Huge exploitation fan, with a huge gap in his knowledge. Shame on me. To spend a morning attending a lecture about them, and then see this one in full, at the BFI recently sounded like a great way to start things off. Then I realised the film was not just likely to result in debate, but certain too. And that the film was showing to a film club for ethnic minorities, and Italian documentary filmmakers Jacopetti and Prosperi are generally considered to have been racist in their approach to showing African peoples, having tried to apologise for Africa Addio by following it up with Goodbye Uncle To; a movie which caused political unrest in some countries and pretty much finished off the careers of the filmmakers. And it suddenly all felt like a really, really bad way to start things off...

Long story short – audience didn’t like it, no-one could defend why it had been shown to that group, people don’t like crazy men who use a Q&A to invite people to cry for poor old misunderstood Mugabi, and I suspect Africa Addio will not be getting a release in this country again any time soon.

Initial Thoughts:

• If you have to justify yourself at the very start, you probably expect an argument.
• The Age of Compromise has begun.” With the worst garden party ever.
• “...just at the moment when it needs Europe the most.” Ready to justify those words? Er, apparently not.

Moving On:

• Riots, homelessness, hunting season for black people, slaughtered families, mutilated animals...
• “For sale...for sale...sold...”don’t forget to dig up the flowerbeds!
• Riots, homelessness, mutilated animals...
• Come to South Africa – home of religious conflict, religious hatred and – apparently – toothpaste commercials.
• Riots, abducted / murdered Germans, slaughtered towns of people...
• Siding with murderous mercenaries.

Final Moments:

• Shootings, gold, penguins.
• “This film, born without prejudices...”

Aftermath:

Maybe I’m not cynical enough, but I honestly thought this would be a less emotively charged, depressingly disingenuous and gruelling experience. The opening claim in the film - that the camera is completely objective and only reports what it sees - rather loses value with all the sneering, mocking moments within the first ten minutes, and is proven an outright lie by the end of this epic. The camera can report what has been staged, and if that includes the actual murder of people and animals, the camera belongs right up the filmmakers’ arses. For all the (admirable) artistic talent, here is no depth or intelligence at work in the film – just ignorance and a stunning lack of respect (one which, since I have now sat through the whole thing twice, I have to question myself as a viewer).

What was originally intended to be a documentary about the wondrous wildlife of Africa turned into a series of short pieces of footage of animal cruelty, human executions, gunfights and chuckling at the posh whitey / goofy darky style of comedy. It’s not outright deliberate, more unintentionally offensive / painful, so much so that it will likely not mean that much to me after a couple of months recovery time, but the pain I felt at watching this for the first time a couple of weeks back has been increased by trying to sit through it all again on the internet. I know the filmmakers were not deliberately making a racist documentary – they appear to hate everyone they show on screen, regardless of colour. I know they dedicated years of their lives travelling a continent and putting themselves in the middle of political conflicts spilling out into bloodshed, keen to capture the events and help show the world these problems were of our making and that we should help end them. But the animal killings (horrific, shown in close up, from multiple angles, seemingly endlessly at some points) end up being tastelessly interlinked with a throwaway commentary on the “new” Africa (one that was not best pleased at having spent so many years with those daft European racists introducing slavery and taking over the land, thanks-ever-so) in such a way that it is bizarre nobody involved in the release of this didn’t just turn around and give Jacopetti and Prosperi a bloody great slap each. A section dedicated to white people losing their homes is shown with such misplaced, yet also suspect, sympathy – denied anyone losing their lives in the film – that it makes me want to scream.

What also makes me depressed about the film is that current TV news doesn’t show much has changed – but when the camera cuts away from slaughtered white people (out of respect) yet zooms right in there for genocide footage in African countries, at least it is for a few seconds at a time. Watching extreme such work over the course of two hours, in one go, just makes me feel like taking a long hot bath, downing a bottle of JD and going to bed for a cry.

The worst thing about this is, oddly and confusingly, the incredibly good soundtrack by Riz Ortolani. The timing of just about every track manages to be outrageously offensive. I don’t know – and have not found anyone who can tell me – if the soundtrack was a beautiful work that then had the film edited to fit with it, or if Mr Ortolani created a soundtrack that frequently might as well have also had a laugh track (with added whoopee cushions for the more violent scenes). I hope it is the former; otherwise, he has gone from being one of my most admired composers to being someone I believe should never have worked again after this film.

The content is all over the place, slapping this particular viewer into wondering, on first viewing, if I had dozed off or if it was edited in such a way that subjects change in the blink of an eye (seeing it again, I can say that the latter is true). The filmmakers clearly could not decide what they wanted this all to be about, the personal values they show are infuriating, and the treatment of natives is beyond contempt. Everything drags on and on and on. The dubbing is sometimes amusing, mostly just clumsy – it’s hard to think of a film where dialogue has been so obviously, carelessly dubbed. But a more beautifully shot film I doubt I will ever see. That soundtrack is wonderful, if listened to away from the movie. And the impact of watching this trash has clearly left me thinking the content through harder than I have after most films. So chalk me up as a regretful, cautious probable mondo movie fan in the making. Just don’t go near this if animal cruelty is not your thing, if you have clinical depression or if showing respect towards you fellow man turns your stomach (the PC brigade would not do well watching this one on a gentle, quiet Sunday afternoon, trust me on this one). Hmph.

Grade C- (Don’t Bother)