Thursday, December 02, 2010

La Pyramide humaine

Ihmispyramidi. FR 1958. PC: Les Films de la Pléïade. D: Jean Rouch. SC: Jean Rouch. DP: Louis Miaille - colour. S: Michel Fano. ED: Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte, Geneviève Bastide. Cast: Nadine Ballot, Denise, Elola, Jean-Claude, Nathalie, Dominique, Landry, Baka, Raymond, Alan Tusques. 93 min. A vintage print with e-subtitles in Finnish by Lena Talvio, viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 2 Dec 2010.

Revisited a half an hour of Jean Rouch's ethnofiction, a human experiment among high school students, black and white, in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. Much stronger than I remembered. The level of intensity is amazing. The film is very direct and harsh on racism, almost inflammatory, dealing openly with prejudice. But in the next scenes we see the black and the white students playing and dancing together. In La Pyramide humaine there is no "cinéma-vérité" but a never-ending movement towards the reality of life, the play and the record. - The vintage colour print has still the sense of the original colour, although it may be slightly faded (and may be a blow-up from 16 mm?).

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