La victoire en chantant

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.

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.

Somewhat familiar, but often very funny anti-war, anti-imperialist satire/farce.

A motley bunch of French, holding down a colonial fort in Africa, discover that WWI has been declared, so go and attack their German neighbors, using their native semi-servants as soldiers, with disastrous results.

Few films manage to wrestle so well, with so many issues – racism, nationalism, religious hypocrisy, etc.

If it kept to it's most original moments, and didn't fall over the edge occasionally into the silly or obviously preachy at times it would be a great film. As is, I might well re-visit. Some professional critics rave, some hate it.

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

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.