Jacopetti and Prosperi’s masterwork, Africa Addio, is a dizzying, mind-blowing work of violently contrasting emotional extremes. A sprawling epic three years in the making, the film goes from detached social commentary to in-your-face battlefield journalism as the ‘Dark Continent’, in the words of the nihilistic voiceover, disintegrates into complete anarchy as the British take their leave. As a follow up to their amusing yet hollow Mondo Cane films, Africa Addio expands the scope tremendously; instead of loosely connected “shocking” vignettes, we’re dealing with the societal breakdown of an entire continent.

At first, the directors aren’t really sure what they’re filming. Early passages depicting the British exit ceremonies have a very stiff awkwardness to them, as does the strange tangent involving the formation of the new “Black Bourgeoisie”. A sequence in a courtroom is chilling, less for the spoken accounts of murders of Whites by the hands of natives, more for the tacit message that “Caucasians equal order”. There’s a condescending, darkly sarcastic scene in a formerly White-owned manor, which has been newly converted to a disorderly hovel for several native families. You can practically hear the cameraman stifling his laughter.

And then the massacres begin.

At first, Jacopetti and Prosperi choose to emphasize the plight of the abundant African wildlife, once protected by White policies, now free game in their national parks which have turned into open hunting grounds. Poachers numbering in the thousands conduct their own personal genocides in self-contained cells. Presumably pretending to be hunting enthusiasts, the directors are invited to come along on one of these killing sprees. Animal lovers beware: these poaching sequences are as drawn-out as they are stomach churning. You’ll see practically every form of animal roaming the savanna getting obliterated by mankind’s latest technology, butchered to create trinkets for tourists, or contribute to the thriving black market for ivory and animal pelts.

Images such as a spear-riddled elephant defiantly pulling a shaft out of its back with its trunk, then making a final, suicidal charge at his adversaries, are sickening, mesmirizing, and unique. With the cost-saving Techniscope process, the many horrifying sequences in Africa Addio have a grandeur about them yet retain a gritty immediacy. It’s easy to see why the directors were accused of having staged some scenes; the film almost looks too good.

When they’re on the danger of achieving shock overload, the editors have the good taste to throw in something quirky or otherwise surreal. Witness the initially heartbreaking moment that begins with a zebra calf discovering his mother’s corpse, then suddenly turns into grand absurdity when the calf is affixed to a helicopter harness, then flown hundreds of miles to sanctuary. Or how about the Dadaesque crocodile rescue operation that involves a lot of colored balloons and a whole lot of heavy sedatives?

It is in these lighthearted, humanist moments that Africa Addio almost has the touch of greatness. Lest you be lulled into false security, those damn Africans can’t seem to go five minutes without some wacko pulling off a successful coup d’état, then initiating some bloody racial cleansing. At first it’s just the usual Rwandan Hutu/Tutsi massacres; isolated radical groups conducting small-fry genocide with dull machetes. The cool detachment of the African police force reflects everything about the “mundane” quality of these horrific mass murders. How can anyone coolly stand there, posing for the cameras with a French assault rifle, while a pile of 50-60 severed hands rests no more than three feet away? The most horrifying image in this sequence isn’t all the blood and guts, it’s the supremely jaded looks that the perpetrators give to the camera.

At a certain point in Africa Addio, one is confronted with the notion that the film would have been drastically different were it not made by Whites, who were pushing an obvious pro-European slant. Certainly the very presence of Jacopetti and Prosperi was enough to draw unneeded suspicion, yet without this suicidal risk-taking, the film would be devoid of its most powerful scenes.

One such tangent involves the filmmakers’ attempts to enter the recently overthrown island territory of Unguja, the capitol of  Zanzibar, to cover the reported genocide of its Arab population. As they attempt enter the territory, with a crew of German journalists in another single-engine Cessna, they can only watch as their companions, who make the mistake of landing on an occupied airstrip, are taken away by an angry mob, while the mob sets fire to their plane. Nothing says “you are not welcome” quite like the image of a burning aircraft on a desolate dirt road. Undaunted, they try again the next day in a helicopter, carrying a red flag “to confuse the savages”. Somehow, the gambit works and they’re directed into the interior, where ethnic cleansing is currently taking place. There is no way this sequence could have been faked.

There is so much actual death in Africa Addio that the film has a kind of numbing effect on the viewer. By the time we hit the mean streets with a crew of hardened European mercenaries, sent to wipe out violent rebel forces, the combat footage seems anticlimactic. The eradication of this one, self-contained radical group is meant to work as catharsis for the pent-up White Guilt simmering under the surface, yet the meaningless violence seems to reflect more poorly on the mercs than it does the natives. Depicted as bored, directionless men of war, destined for an inglorious end on one foreign battlefield or another, there is no sympathy evoked for these tragic souls. In fact, there is no sympathy for anyone on any side, and in the film’s original form, there were even sarcastic asides such as an inexplicable sequence depicting black men watching a white woman perform in a cabaret. Thankfully the “Director’s Cut”, the most widely available on DVD, excises most of the tasteless parts in favor of a rounded, if not entirely truthful worldview.

One strange appendix, after the gut-wrenching violence, is a fantastical trip to Cape Town replete with psychedelic editing and a whole lot of half-naked white women gyrating on trampolines. Another follows the production of the British propaganda piece Zulu and a rather strange musical break between staged tribal dance scenes. The fusion of black and white culture is interesting if not wholly fleshed out. These are just weird vignettes in the Mondo Cane style; since the film was originally meant to be Mondo Cane 3, the original vision of the product must have involved a lot more of these pointless yet memorable images.

So Africa Addio isn’t entirely horrific, nor is it entirely humorous, humanistic, or insightful. What it is is total sensory overload in a classical journalistic style, and I’d imagine any attempts at psychedelic enjoyment would result in some very unpleasant trips. The images are so powerful that Jacopetti and Prosperi could never shake the stigma of having staged some of them for the camera. In fact, Ruggero Deodato’s legendary Cannibal Holocaust seems to have been made as a direct response to Africa Addio. Its two “heroes” are clearly meant to be the two Italian Mondo kings; in the film they stage scenes of tribal violence in order to capture brilliant footage for their Mondo doc. However, they go a bit too far and end up on the receiving end of the natives’ wrath. They also indulge in a bit of the old in-out-in-out with a native lady, and commit outright homicides, so perhaps Holocaust exaggerates a little.

Whether you love it or hate it, or can’t even watch enough of it to form an opinion, Africa Addio is an indispensable addition to the documentary genre. Its fearlessness is to be admired even if its sketchy morality is to be avoided at all costs. It’s a work of intense passion that yields equally fruitful rewards for a brave viewer. You can often learn more from a misguided work than a masterpiece, and this film is so masterfully misguided that it’s all but impossible not to have a strong reaction to its flood of imagery.

Tags: africa addio, jacopetti and prosperi, misanthropia

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