Sehnsucht nach Afrika

In this biting satire on war, colonialism and racism, French troops in 1915 Gabon learn that their country has declared war on Germany. Knowing that there are German troops nearby, they decide to train the colonized Africans to fight. Only one person in the French contingent seems to have an iota of reason to his thinking.

I think that "Noirs et blancs en couleur" (called "Black and White in Color" in English) shows imperialism in its most pathetic, depraved form. Not only do the colonizers want the colonized people to fight for the empire, but there's one scene that especially emphasizes this. When some rich people go out for a picnic, they watch the fighting as though it's a spectator sport; a form of entertainment, if you will. But they get mighty shocked when they see how violent it is. Apparently, these colonialists are so completely brainwashed by their own pro-war, nationalistic propaganda, that they fail to realize how ugly war actually is, and they're in for a rude awakening when they find the truth.

Anyway, this is definitely a movie that I recommend. We could use some advice from it, what with the mess that we've made in Iraq. Certainly a good one for Jean-Jacques Annaud, and it definitely deserved Best Foreign Language Film.

Black and White in Color is a French anti war movie, done as a black comedy, which won the Best Foreign Film Academy Award in 1976.

World War I is the setting for the French colonists fighting the Germans on the Ivory Coast. The French draft the locals in order to battle the Germans, supplying the natives with guns, uniforms, and other equipment and attempt to train their reluctant soldiers in the ways of war.

The result is a combination of keystone cops and a Marx Brothers saga, with everyone running around, clueless. No one really gets hurt as the real fighting is occurring far from Africa. I am reminded of The Mouse That Roared with Peter Sellers for comparison to Black and White in Color. A funny satire with a positive universal message on man's follies, this is worth watching.

Annaud's Black and White in Color is an ambitious film packaged as a modest anti-war satire. It meets and exceeds its ambitions, with an intelligent script that keeps us, the audience, fully in-the-know throughout. There is a satire of colonialism, of civilian zealots, of arrogance, of racism, of the Great War and politicians, of the emptiness of slogans and braggadocio, and also of the lust for power and the acquiescence of ordinary people to powerful people. The on-location filming in the Ivory Coast was a treat. It's a story that keeps us thinking all the time about what's absurd, what's realistic, and about knowing right from wrong.

Fall of 1914. French and Germans, living in colonies side by side (Togo or Cameroon, take your pick), feel compelled to be at war with each other since that is what's happening back home, too. Naively and almost playfully at first, until the game starts getting uglier and they experience the horror of casualties nobody had really wanted. Both sides get professional help and they become hardened by the everyday routine (the Germans winning, because their officer studied in Heidelberg...)and start killing each other more efficiently, until finally the war ends and the British arrive to restore law and order in the territories. The long column of British troops, all Africans and Asians, is led by one junior officer on horseback - who when his face is eventually revealed, turns out to be Indian.

Annaud shot the film in the Ivory Coast, then a very staunchly pro-French country. He refused to show anybody the script and pretended he was shooting a very different type of movie. At the gala premiere performance in Abidjan, when the French officials realized the entire picture was a spoof on French colonial policies, they walked out, much to the embarrassment of the Ivorians, who were just as unaware of what Annaud had been up to...

This film stands in its caliber up there with Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), and Johnny Got his Gun. It is World War in a microcosm.

The film is not dated, nor will it ever be. All long as men fight for territory or for ideals, this film will stand among the top few as a testament to the idiocy and pettiness of war. Was not available for many years.

"Ich auch"-- closing line -- as the two lieutenants walk together off set-- burned in my memory from one viewing nearly 30 years ago. If you saw it you will remember.