(Africa in Africa as the heart or heart in a box Ramón)
was just released in a better world, the Oscar-winning film by Susanne Bier. But this film is not what I want to talk. What I want is to use this film to draw a few lines on a subject that interests me: the movies that Europeans are in Africa. That is, the European look of the black continent (or yellow if you look at the desert, or green if we dip into its jungles). And I say European and non-Americans because the American people do when they go to Africa to film is very different from what the Europeans. American film seeks adventure with the nuances it takes between the masterpiece that is Hatari, Howard Hawks, and demagoguery adventurous Zwick's Blood Diamond. The Europeans, however, seek redemption of their colonial bad conscience. No matter what argument: a Danish doctor who believes in nonviolence (for Bier's film), a German physician fascinated by the mysteries of the jungle (the case of sleeping sickness by Ulrich Köhler, one of the titles most interesting sights in Berlin), either the woman lost in the maze who plays Isabelle Huppert in the wonderful film by Claire Denis White Material, (which I hope some day you can see on our screens) or the direct antecedent the foundation of the same Chocolat Claire Denis. All these titles are a common feature: the bad conscience. What's different is how they manage such a bad conscience. In any case, are these lines as the sketch of a possible book that could include a standard film as powerful as lion hunting bow, Jean Rouch, or as aesthetic and The Sheltering Sky, Bertolucci, as hysterical as Cobra green, or as well-intentioned Herzog as The Constant Gardener. There are many and can help us think about our own history, literature (that would be another nice theme from Tarzan or Conrad, to Bruce Chatwin to John Le Carré), art, music ...
0 comments:
Post a Comment