89: The Mad Masters (a.k.a. Les maîtres fous)

            Ethnography has to be one of the most difficult forms of filmmaking.  Certainly it’s a different task than scripting and directing action, but as a recorder of the customs and practices of another culture, one also takes on very different risks.  In the case of Jean Rouch’s The Mad Masters (1955), those risks were not fully accounted for.  Rouch was allowed to film the religious ceremonies of the Hauka sect of West Africa, and the resulting film proved controversial to say the least.

            The early footage consists of a brief slice of daily life for the Haukas, mostly migrant workers finding day labor jobs that serve the colonial economy of Accra.  As members pile into vehicles, Rouch’s voiceover explains that once a year the sect meets far outside of the city to perform their major spiritual sacrament.  At a remote location the males of the group ingest a powder that brings on hypnotized trance.  They burn their bodies with torches, foam at the mouth, spit blood, and speak in an unknown language.  Rouch’s camera is curious, but his sparse VO offers little explanation of these events, which comprise the majority of the picture’s short runtime.

            Controversy erupted as a result of Rouch’s editing in the final segment of the film, in which he equates the entranced actions of the Hauka to mimicry of their colonial oppressors.  His contention that the ceremony served as catharsis that prevented violent uprisings ultimately failed, and his film was banned in several British West African colonies.  The film also garnered criticism from African students, who claimed that it perpetrated negative stereotypes of Black African culture, and pointed to the somewhat obvious staging of its events.  Eventually, Rouch acknowledged this staging, choosing to call The Mad Masters a “docufiction”, a term he would eventually ascribe to much of his work.

Language: French (primary)/?

Runtime: 28 Minutes

Available @veoh.com

Grade: 1 Hat Off