Les maîtres fous (The Mad Masters)

Note : This review is my contribution to the Shorts! blogathon hosted by Movies Silently from May 2nd to the 4th of 2015. Please visit the links and enjoy the readings of the other great writers participating.

Les maîtres fous (The Mad Masters) (Jean Rouch, 1955)

The effects of colonialism are exposed in this film on indigenous Africans via specific rituals developed as a reaction to the colonial system. The film turns into a crazy elaboration on both the madness of such a political system and man himself.

Banned in Niger and British territories like Ghana, Jean Rouch’s Les maîtres fous is a docufiction about ethnology and colonialism. Rouch was himself a well known ethnologist and developed the genre ethnofiction. At the time when Rouch directed and presented his film nations were about to get free from their masters. Movements of nationalism and liberation were budding all over the world. In 1958, Niger for example gained its Independence.

Les maîtres fous presents the sect of the Haukas that initiates its participants with possessions and representations of the behaviors of their masters. In a way they try to emulate the actions of their oppressors and simulate and expiate their sufferings. As they do this afterwards the Haukas are shown working with big smiles and happiness despite the poor condition of hard work.

Another explanation of this tradition is an African interpretation of the rituals as it is a way to take their rivals power and eat it. For non-African people this interpretation seems difficult to understand but many rituals executed in Africa are old of hundreds, if not, thousands of years and are anchored deep into the collective mind of these people.

Jean Rouch with his docufiction seems to be exploiting a sensationalist behavior that gives a racist vision of colonialism. Well, let’s face it, colonialism was the act of Imperialist nations wanting to spread their culture and conquer the world with ideas, language, religion. It was also a way to get resources at almost no price with cheap labor. Sure racism has many masks but colonialism was one of them. Discarding the locals’ culture and imposing your own can’t be good for your politics and men.

But Rouch wants to show the reaction of the locals after many years of colonialism in their home land. No surprise the film was banned; it depicted without any filter the direct effects of nations on the verge of their independence living under the leaders of imperialist nations and making benefits on the hard work and land of their locals.

As a film of 36 minutes, Les maîtres fous was less disturbing that I thought it would be. It is straight to the point and narrated by Rouch himself. What’s interesting with documentaries, in this case a sixty years old one, is that it is a document depicting a slice of history very specific to a part of the world where few documents are available since history was more an oral tradition than our academic interpretation of the discipline. It is important that such short films and documentaries are preserved for generations to come to understand the past and the variety of ethnicity.

Smiles of a Summer Night

Smiles of a Summer Night (Ingmar Bergman, 1955)

The lives of bourgeois lovers in Sweden during a summer of the first half of the 20th Century are inspired to let themselves live their passion. Based on a Shakespeare play, Smiles of a Summer Night was later an inspiration for Woody Allen’s A Midsummer’s Night Sex Comedy.
Interestingly enough is the fact that it is one of the few comedies that Ingmar Bergman ever directed. In interviews he often said that he was not in his element while working with this genre. However, Smiles of a Summer Night might be his more accessible work and one of the most enjoyable.

With a cast of Bergman regulars of the sexy Harriet Andersson, the ever great Gunnar Bjornstrand, and a very small bit by the beautiful Bibi Andersson. The lightness of the story and the whole tone of its debonair approach to love is refreshing and brings a sexy angle to the costume piece and the beautiful actresses in Ulla Jacobsson, Margit Carlqvist, and Ella Dahlbeck.
Speaking of actors in a Bergman film, one must say that they are directed by the hand of a master. When the chameleonic Bjornstrand is the central character in a picture we are in for a treat. It is one of the most underrated actors that worked with him and he could do anything. Simply put a beard on the man and he is the elder lawyer Egerman that married a virgin but still having a passion for the hot tempered actress he frequented as a mistress years ago.

Smiles of a Summer Night might seem like an UFO in Bergman’s filmography but his treatment of bourgeoisie and their love affairs was already a subject that he was acquainted to. There’s the thin line between keeping the face and humiliation that the men suffer all along the film and we discover again strong women in Bergman’s film that have the control over the heart of their lovers. This kind of comedy can be compared to an Ernst Lubitsch classic that could have been shot in Sweden but still carrying the same sophistication and je ne sais quoi.

As the final film I had to watch from Ingmar Bergman to complete my quest of watching all of the 1000 Greatest films of all time by www.theyshootpictures.com, I must admit having had a lot of fun and I could easily recommend this entry in Bergman’s filmography and in any list. It is a great relief when someone compare this with his other austere and heavy dramas.

 

 

The Hollywood Ten

In November 1947, the 25th precisely, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy “declared” war against the REDS in the USA with the first Hollywood blacklist. This list was populated by ten writers and directors that refused to answer to the House of Committee on Un-American Activities. There were all fired from the studios they were working for, this event is called the Waldorf Statement. The statement declared that the ten would be fired or suspended without pay and not reemployed until they were cleared of contempt charges and had sworn that they were not Communists.