La victoire en chantant

At the time I'm writing this we are at war in the USA. I would hope that anyone worn down by the reality of these times would see this picture. What a testament to the insanity.

My favorite part in this movie is when the natives are traveling and singing as they carry the lazy priests along their journey. The translations of the lyrics are hilarious, considering the pompous priests have no idea what they are singing and think its rather quaint.

A 10 and a 0 poke.*

*see my other reviews for poke definition

While I would be the first to admit that this slight little film will probably not change your life, it is very clever and well worth watching. It is the story of an inept little French village in West Africa that discovers that World War I has been raging for 6 months. So, as patriotic Frenchmen, they decide to launch a completely inept invasion of a nearby German village--even though they had been on excellent terms for some time. The silly slogans and patriotism as well as the ensuing stupidity of their assault is a great mini-version of the real war back in Europe. The parallel is actually quite smart as is the acting and direction.

A slight movie, yes, but it will give you a little chuckle and it's all harmless fun.

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.

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...

It is more than 20 years since I saw BLACK AND WHITE IN COLOR, but this lovely and masterful film still stands out in my memory as a great movie-going experience. What remains after twenty years? The delicate sense of humor and irony which skewers the irrational nationalistic fervor that prevents people from seeing the truth before their eyes and the feelings in their hearts; the extraordinary beauty of the images drawn from the saturated African light; the awful sadness I felt, as comedy descended into tragedy, and I realized that this absurd situation was terribly real, terribly true.

I don't know if this film is available on video, but certainly , in whatever venue, it is an opportunity not to be missed.