The viewer may be prejudiced at first because it is a Mondo Film, famous for its Shockumentary style. But as this is one of the first four, made in 1966, it still has a message to convey.
The film is in a documentary style, but at a time when documentaries used real footage instead of recreations.
The film is about the end of colonialism in Africa and the narrator takes us to several important events such as the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, the destruction of white farms, the War in Rhodesia and Mozambique, violent protests in South Africa, terrorism in Zanzibar and a part that I think is a historical relic: a recording of Mercenaries going to save the priests and nuns who were being taken hostage in Stanleyville, Congo; I find this part really cool, the narrator initially shows them how mercenaries really are, basically ordinary people, laughing, having fun, throwing themselves into the river, etc.. and then suddenly they are in the middle of the shooting, counting money and looting, basically the the two faces of the human being, innocence and violence.
So, depending on the person, this doc is a bit gruesome because it really wants to show the disgrace that was the disorderly withdrawal of colonialism in Africa, which resulted in clan wars, assassinated presidents, guerrillas, communist dictatorships or generic military dictatorships being established in the countries.
So if you want to see it, know that there are often bodies, dead people, exploded people, mass graves, corpses, skeletons and more on the screen. In fact, the film has a part where the mercenaries arrest a terrorist who had burned down a daycare center with 27 children inside, they summarily execute him, then there are this and other execution scenes, for those who think it's too strong, I don't recommend it.
However, as the narrator himself explains, this was so common that people already thought it was normal to have a body in the middle of the sidewalk, so no one even bothered to remove the dead.
Despite the amount of violence and horrible things, I think that it shows the scope of the film and the absurdity that is mankind, like, there were so many dead people that everyone simply starts to treat them as part of the scenery;
In conclusion, like, yeah, obviously this film ends up doing a collection of horrible things and it's important to remember that Africa isn't just that, even more so today. But unfortunately it had and, in some countries, there still is a lot of it, colonialism was not an 8 or 80 phenomenon; it was good in parts but it was bad, there was apartheid, there was torture, slavery, castes and all kinds of nonsense, but ironically, when the whites were gone, the natives and their governments became as cruel or even more than those of white people.
I think this just goes to show that yes, we live in a Dog's World, where human beings will take the first opportunity to go from victim to aggressor; and that the argument that "Africa's problem is the white man"; fell to the ground a long time ago, wherever there are human beings, there will be cruelty!
The film is in a documentary style, but at a time when documentaries used real footage instead of recreations.
The film is about the end of colonialism in Africa and the narrator takes us to several important events such as the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, the destruction of white farms, the War in Rhodesia and Mozambique, violent protests in South Africa, terrorism in Zanzibar and a part that I think is a historical relic: a recording of Mercenaries going to save the priests and nuns who were being taken hostage in Stanleyville, Congo; I find this part really cool, the narrator initially shows them how mercenaries really are, basically ordinary people, laughing, having fun, throwing themselves into the river, etc.. and then suddenly they are in the middle of the shooting, counting money and looting, basically the the two faces of the human being, innocence and violence.
So, depending on the person, this doc is a bit gruesome because it really wants to show the disgrace that was the disorderly withdrawal of colonialism in Africa, which resulted in clan wars, assassinated presidents, guerrillas, communist dictatorships or generic military dictatorships being established in the countries.
So if you want to see it, know that there are often bodies, dead people, exploded people, mass graves, corpses, skeletons and more on the screen. In fact, the film has a part where the mercenaries arrest a terrorist who had burned down a daycare center with 27 children inside, they summarily execute him, then there are this and other execution scenes, for those who think it's too strong, I don't recommend it.
However, as the narrator himself explains, this was so common that people already thought it was normal to have a body in the middle of the sidewalk, so no one even bothered to remove the dead.
Despite the amount of violence and horrible things, I think that it shows the scope of the film and the absurdity that is mankind, like, there were so many dead people that everyone simply starts to treat them as part of the scenery;
In conclusion, like, yeah, obviously this film ends up doing a collection of horrible things and it's important to remember that Africa isn't just that, even more so today. But unfortunately it had and, in some countries, there still is a lot of it, colonialism was not an 8 or 80 phenomenon; it was good in parts but it was bad, there was apartheid, there was torture, slavery, castes and all kinds of nonsense, but ironically, when the whites were gone, the natives and their governments became as cruel or even more than those of white people.
I think this just goes to show that yes, we live in a Dog's World, where human beings will take the first opportunity to go from victim to aggressor; and that the argument that "Africa's problem is the white man"; fell to the ground a long time ago, wherever there are human beings, there will be cruelty!