Les Médecins volants d'Afrique de l'Est

Flying Doctors of East Africa, The (1969)

*** (out of 4)

Original title: Die Fliegenden Ärzte von Ostafrika

Herzog documentary takes a look at some volunteers in Africa who fly around to various rural parts just to perform operations and spread the word about medicine. Even though the doctors try their best they are often met with people who either refuse to listen or are afraid of what they are actually trying to do. This is yet another fascinating film from the German director who of course would go onto make some of the best documentaries out there. This film here is like many of his future works in that it doesn't take a look at the subject in an usual way but instead takes a look at strange things other filmmakers might overlook. The perfect example of this is a scene where the narrator talks about hyenas and their appetite for the plane tires especially those made by Firestone. The doctors also have to work with other strange things like one tribe being terrified to climb steps so they have to be lured to climb them to reach the treatment. The doctors interviewed for the project are all rather interesting since they are doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. They discuss the benefit of flying around to the patients but they are open with their frustration of the same people who sometimes make their jobs very difficult. Before operations the doctors will tell people not to eat but the African people think food is the way to get healthy and this here causes many to puke into their masks and kill them (like the story to the Newman film The Verdict). Running a short 45-minutes, the movie never overstays its welcome and in the end this turns out to be another winner for the director.

This early documentary from director Werner Herzog was, like some of his other similar films from the period such as Handicapped Future (1971), made for television as opposed the cinema. Nevertheless, it still displays some of the features which would go on to mark him out as such a great documentarian. This one is ostensibly about a group of British physicians who set up a flying doctors operation to help tribe's peoples who populate the vast areas of undeveloped rural east Africa. I say ostensibly because, while it does feature these doctors and describes elements of their operation, it's a film which truly works when it focuses on atypical details. This is a facet of Herzog which he would show an instinctive knack for time and again throughout his career, both in his fictional films as well as his documentaries. In this particular example, it's these odd observations which are the ones which stick with the viewer afterwards. We watch people cover plane wheels with branches and twigs in order to hide them from hyenas and leopards, both of whom we learn have a predilection for eating tyres, we witness the extraordinary sight of a tribe who are afraid and totally unsure of themselves when trying to mount half a dozen steps which lead into the back of a van – these lithe athletic people clearly having some inbuilt problem with navigating something we don't think twice about, similarly a group of Africans are shown a series of pictures and asked to find details we clearly can see such as an eye and a human figure; many find it simply impossible to do so. These latter two segments are frankly incredible and tell us so much about the human brain. The ways in which different cultures which have developed completely independently of one and other have very differing inbuilt ideas about many seemingly ordinary things. Human perception is a complex thing. It made me think about how the representative images that were shown, really are quite strange and abstract and it is only by growing up in a culture surrounded by them that they make any sense at all. Completely fascinating stuff.

When it comes down to it, the material surrounding the doctors themselves can sometimes become a bit dry but it is when Herzog fearlessly goes off message that this film really strikes a chord. This may be a minor work of his but it shows once again that minor Herzog is still something which always offers at least something fascinating.

Here Herzog sets out to document a small group of British physicians who provide medical supplies and aid to the vast undeveloped interior of tribal eastern Africa.

Werner's fascination with these "flying doctors" seems genuine though comes across as exploitive and poorly realized. He focuses primarily on the indigenous tribes' primitive conditions and quirky cultural differences largely avoiding focusing on the actual doctors the film is named after. Their backgrounds - their motivations - their passion for helping these people through great adversity is hardly touched upon leaving behind a sheen but hollow "National Geographic" short.

It certainly doesn't help that the film's English dialog is spoken over by German narration often without the benefits of English subtitles. And when subtitles are present, they are blocked and very poorly translated.

Still, there are good scenes providing reflection on culture, adaptation to environment and the nature of health care.

Herzog described this as a 'report' rather than a documentary and I'm inclined to agree. It's a short film that explores the working lives of flying doctors who work with rural tribes in Kenya, struggling to deal with the ignorance and superstition that prohibits their effective work. As usual with the director, here's a film that refuses to take sides or criticise ignorance; there's none of that "white saviour" myth here, just an intriguing and little-known situation well described.

Common themes of the director's work are present and correct: the doctors visit an incredibly primitive village which consists of straw huts dotted along the edge of a lake, so it's man vs. nature again. The shadow of death hangs over the production with some extremely grim and upsetting scenes, but there's also humour here, as when the natives refuse to climb steps because they've never seen them. As a whole it's thoroughly informative and educational.

Herzog's short film about the doctors that fly all over central Africa to bring medical help to the people living in the bush. We fly with the doctors and they tell us about the history of their service and how they treat their patients.

Its a very good, and considering the director almost too straight forward documentary. It has none of the earmarks of what you would think of as a Herzog film and if I had missed the opening credits I would never have guessed who directed it. To be honest the film is very reminiscent of a Mondo movie. Not because its sensational, rather because its African setting in the late 1960's coupled the narration makes it seem (slightly) more exploitive then it is(I wonder if the English narrator did Mondo work). What I found interesting was the stories of the culture clashes that occur for the doctors, as say some of the tribesmen refused to climb stairs or a poster designed to warn the people about a fly that causes blindness are not understood by the people its suppose to help.

Worth a look for the subject matter if nothing else.