Short Review: Not worth watching. Makes 90 minutes and a cool premise feel like a slog. If you really want to see it, look up clips of the best parts instead. Definitely not good for a modern audience, and probably wasn't good for an audience at the time either. 3/10 Quality, 3/10 Enjoyment. Watched November 2022
Summary - A French town on The Ivory Coast gets word that WWI has broken out and the local German village is now their enemy. The once friendly french quickly work themselves into a patriotic frenzy and decide to attack their former neighbors. Possessing no formal army or militia, they decide to use their African slaves as soldiers. Given 1.5 days of training, the Africans are predictably slaughtered in the attack, while the french townsfolk have a picnic nearby. Seeing the massacre, the young geographer of the town takes charge and begins enslaving and training more locals of different tribes to serve as his army.
Long Review: This movie promotes itself as a comedy satire war piece. Unfortunately, its almost complete lack of self awareness defeats any attempt at real satire, as the movie continues to treat the black actors almost as badly as their narrative counterparts. There are approximately 3 good jokes, and while they all come at the expense of the French colonizers, none of them is any more complex than 'I called them fat in a language they don't understand and they thought it was fun instead of rude'. If you cut the filler, travel shots, and repeat jokes, you're only left with about 30 minutes of material. And it's so incredibly slow. Sometimes it's hard to make a 90 minute movie feel like it's enough time for the content, and sometimes you feel like you're watching scenery shots occasionally spaced out with part of the movie you wanted to see. This is neither. It never really stops or lingers, it just seems to quietly shuffle along hoping you'll only notice when it does something funny. Somehow afterwards, it feels like you haven't really watched anything. The 'satire' scenes drag on too long and usually only have one joke. Often characters will act in a way that seems intentionally ridiculous, but the movie almost never acknowledges it, leaving you to wonder if that was in fact a joke. The geologist (our part-time main character) seems to be some sort of Nazi allegory or admirer. He's blond-and-blue and at one point sits in front of his new slave army in new uniform as as they parade before him. I'm not sure if it's a textual thing I'm missing because I'm not french, or if it's some strange idea from the creators. Either way, it's a pretty terrible idea for someone who is ostensibly our hero. Finally, the last 10 minutes of the movie introduces our best character; the the Indian-British general. He shows up far too late, and should have instead been an act 3 twist to spice up our war.
Plot Doctor: The worst part is, there's the bones of a great film here. It just needed to have the guts to make the Africans the main characters. A film where we watch the ineptitude and self congratulatory nature of the bumbling colonizers seen through the eyes of the Africans. At first we follow the French and Germans as our main characters and we slowly become aware of how ignorant and gullible they are. Perhaps hint that their slaves handle all the real business negotiations while the Germans and French sit and get drunk. When war breaks out, highlight how quick they are to turn on their former friends. It's important to switch between the two factions and show how they are each incompetent and malicious in their own way. We grow to feel more with the locals as the first third of the movie progresses. Make fun of the missionaries and show how they would often be scammed with fake or shoddy 'False Idols'. Show us how the tribes people were happy to go along with the colonial ridiculousness right up until they were told to throw themselves into the meat grinder. Then the movie switches the African's point of view. We get subtitles now for the local language, and we watch as behind the scenes, the slaves of both factions meet in secret and plan a fake war to trick the French and Germans. For our final beat, have the British show up at the end, just in time to foil our African heroes plan and reveal them to their colonizers... Only for it to be revealed that the British slaves have pulled a similar gag and tricked the British into thinking that the war is over. We get a little wink and a nod and close on the Africans basically in charge, corralling and organizing the three factions of bickering white people.~/
Summary - A French town on The Ivory Coast gets word that WWI has broken out and the local German village is now their enemy. The once friendly french quickly work themselves into a patriotic frenzy and decide to attack their former neighbors. Possessing no formal army or militia, they decide to use their African slaves as soldiers. Given 1.5 days of training, the Africans are predictably slaughtered in the attack, while the french townsfolk have a picnic nearby. Seeing the massacre, the young geographer of the town takes charge and begins enslaving and training more locals of different tribes to serve as his army.
Long Review: This movie promotes itself as a comedy satire war piece. Unfortunately, its almost complete lack of self awareness defeats any attempt at real satire, as the movie continues to treat the black actors almost as badly as their narrative counterparts. There are approximately 3 good jokes, and while they all come at the expense of the French colonizers, none of them is any more complex than 'I called them fat in a language they don't understand and they thought it was fun instead of rude'. If you cut the filler, travel shots, and repeat jokes, you're only left with about 30 minutes of material. And it's so incredibly slow. Sometimes it's hard to make a 90 minute movie feel like it's enough time for the content, and sometimes you feel like you're watching scenery shots occasionally spaced out with part of the movie you wanted to see. This is neither. It never really stops or lingers, it just seems to quietly shuffle along hoping you'll only notice when it does something funny. Somehow afterwards, it feels like you haven't really watched anything. The 'satire' scenes drag on too long and usually only have one joke. Often characters will act in a way that seems intentionally ridiculous, but the movie almost never acknowledges it, leaving you to wonder if that was in fact a joke. The geologist (our part-time main character) seems to be some sort of Nazi allegory or admirer. He's blond-and-blue and at one point sits in front of his new slave army in new uniform as as they parade before him. I'm not sure if it's a textual thing I'm missing because I'm not french, or if it's some strange idea from the creators. Either way, it's a pretty terrible idea for someone who is ostensibly our hero. Finally, the last 10 minutes of the movie introduces our best character; the the Indian-British general. He shows up far too late, and should have instead been an act 3 twist to spice up our war.
Plot Doctor: The worst part is, there's the bones of a great film here. It just needed to have the guts to make the Africans the main characters. A film where we watch the ineptitude and self congratulatory nature of the bumbling colonizers seen through the eyes of the Africans. At first we follow the French and Germans as our main characters and we slowly become aware of how ignorant and gullible they are. Perhaps hint that their slaves handle all the real business negotiations while the Germans and French sit and get drunk. When war breaks out, highlight how quick they are to turn on their former friends. It's important to switch between the two factions and show how they are each incompetent and malicious in their own way. We grow to feel more with the locals as the first third of the movie progresses. Make fun of the missionaries and show how they would often be scammed with fake or shoddy 'False Idols'. Show us how the tribes people were happy to go along with the colonial ridiculousness right up until they were told to throw themselves into the meat grinder. Then the movie switches the African's point of view. We get subtitles now for the local language, and we watch as behind the scenes, the slaves of both factions meet in secret and plan a fake war to trick the French and Germans. For our final beat, have the British show up at the end, just in time to foil our African heroes plan and reveal them to their colonizers... Only for it to be revealed that the British slaves have pulled a similar gag and tricked the British into thinking that the war is over. We get a little wink and a nod and close on the Africans basically in charge, corralling and organizing the three factions of bickering white people.~/