Review of The Mad Masters

This may not be listed in any film books, but this thirty-minute documentary is in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so that has to be a good reason to give it a go. This was filmed in 1954 by ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch who was invited to the Western African city of Accra to document a small group of Hauka, the black community, as they do their yearly religious ritual. Throughout the course of the ceremony, many of the people went into a trace-like state, possessed by the spirits representing French Colonialist Administrators, or the "white oppressors". These would include the engineer, the doctor's wife, the governor-general and the cruel major, and besides that is no real purpose or meaning behind the film, it is just simply seeing some African people acting peculiar in a few moments. Even being Docu-fiction, this film supposedly caused a lot of controversy for its racist material, i.e. mocking of whites, so much so that it was banned from cinemas. I can't really comment on my opinions on that, I don't I was paying full attention to understand it all, but I certainly didn't get bored with it, so I guess it is something to be seen. Good!