There was a time (and it wasn’t that long ago, either) when violent, political, or sexually improper films were relegated to dingy theatres in dusty neighbourhoods where normal folk feared to tread. These films usually came from faraway lands and came equipped with shocking titles and lurid ad campaigns devised by fly-by-night distributors more renowned for their creative accounting practices than their artistic achievements. Today, films full of hardcore violence and sexuality are pretty much owned, operated, and distributed in suburban multiplexes and satellite dishes by large, profitable corporations who shovel pornography like Hitman, Saw IV, and Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew up our collective behind.
Back in 1965, however, Mondo was king and people around the world flocked to see Franco Prosperi’s and Gualtiero Jacopetti’s groundbreaking documentaries Mondo Cane and Mondo Cane 2. These Mondo films were the precursors of the subgenre known as the “shockumentary,” in which unusual and controversial footage from around the world (usually involving sex and violence) was packaged in a pseudo-documentary format narrated by a world-weary former Hollywood star (like George Saunders) and underscored by a groovy score and an anything-that-sticks aesthetic.
Africa Addio (aka Goodbye Africa) was filmed by Jacopetti and Prosperi between 1962 and 1964, a time when Africa had been liberated from centuries of colonial imprisonment and left, seemingly, to prosper or perish on its own. What one receives in this mondo manifesto is an indescribable evocation of a world unlike anything you’ve ever seen presented in a style that will outrage politically left-, right- and centre-minded people to an equal degree.
Scenes of human-on-human depravity (rebels butchering innocent civilians) are contrasted with human-on-animal depravity (wealthy white “hunters” on murderous rampages inside animal preserves) as a callous narrator taunts the viewer with his jaded philosophy underneath a go-go soundtrack. Two-minute-long lateral tracking shots of animal carcasses dissolve into slo-mo rack zooms of trampoline models in South Africa. Looting, pillaging, carnage: everything is here to behold in this extravaganza of excess!
This fascinating film remains controversial for all the right reasons. The filmmakers were one of a handful of individuals documenting that turbulent time in Africa’s history, so this might be your only chance to see the open graves of the mass murder of 20,000 Arabs during the 1964 Zanzibar rebellion or “you are there” footage of mercenaries driving through the deserted streets of Stanleyville after the 1964 Simba Rebel massacre in the Congo that left 12,000 dead. What other film do you know of where the filmmakers regularly get fired at or dragged from their vehicle by rebels and police?
With the continued whitewashing of imagery in the name of corporate profitability that passes for television news today, Africa Addio is a stark and timely reminder that the truth is often best served far away from the cloak of “respectability,” in places where normal folk fear to tread.
Watch Africa Addio online at www.video.google.ca.
