Afrika spricht!

This classic of the genre of nature and regional history documentaries is a very entertaining, well-filmed film, told with a lot of humor, which served as the inspiration for many later documentaries in this direction, yes, probably even for the entire subject matter. It is of course clear that he is under the sign of his time, but using a historical understanding to look at cultural products and contexts is not easy for everyone these days. However, to claim that this film has racist undertones or colonialist perspectives is to undermine and misrepresent the basic tenor of the entire film. In fact, an Africa is shown here with great respect, which in its romantic portrayal was an example for many later imaginations and ideals about this fascinating continent. A continent that is mainly shaped today by the devastation caused by warlords, corruption, destroyed culture and insane religions. A glimpse into the past with sadness and charm. A documentary that must have been a true cinematic experience not only back then.

This makes Luis Bunuel's Land Without Bread look like a perfect historic document. It's like a 12 year old looks at Africa and just makes up opinions about things after being told he's the smartest kid in the world. It's very entertaining and it's very useful. When they are not staging people and the sound is off this is amazing footage. They capture a lot of scenery of the time. Apparently at the time, if you could afford a camera and were willing to point it at something interesting, you could consider yourself a documentarian.

I do realize he's telling bad jokes but it's the statements when he's being serious that make it so absurd.

He's making everything up as he narrates. He thinks a child's belly that indicates malnourishment is an indication of eating well. I fact checked a statement he made about a giraffe and it's completely incorrect. His statements about rhinos are also incorrect. Lions manes vary based on weather not because they get caught on bushes.

His knowledge of insects is the insects today do not act as well as insects in the Bible. Ungodly insects apparently. He provides an explanation for a practice of women in a tribe and it is wrong on every aspect. He states that nobody understands the behavior of impalas and then offers made-up information about the behavior of impalas.

These gentlemen are making a Borat style exposé about themselves. There's a scene where they obviously told two Africans to do something silly and then yell at them not to do it. This is a few white men discovering Africa by having dozens of black people do all their work. He points out that they use people from different tribes that can't talk to each other to make sure they don't all quit at the same time.

Like Land Without Bread, this is a period piece that demonstrates a time when documentaries lacked journalistic standards. I do recognize some of this continues today and hence Borat has a lot of work to do.

In order to bring this important early sound era documentary into proper cultural and natural historic focus, one must bethink of the prodigious changes that have altered the face of Africa as well as its humanity and fauna during the more than 70 years since the film's production. One can only imagine the reaction of a 1930 audience which viewed the extraordinary events presented and filmed by Colorado-based explorer Paul Hoefler, including the death and mealtaking by a family of lions of one of Hoefler's expeditionary native assistants, total decimation of the expedition's surrounding flora by a massive winged horde of locusts, and remarkable animals and people of many varieties. Narrator Lowell Thomas' somewhat casual comments of events that could not have been greeted in such cavalier fashion at the time they occurred can be offputting, and his attempts at whimsy consistently fall as flat as the veldt being traversed, but withal the narration provides a raft of historically fascinating data. Hoefler's book of the same title, published shortly after the release of the film, differs insofar as the expedition actually travelled from east to west, rather than the reverse, but for purposes of visual impact actual events were edited in order to produce dramatic action.

Africa Speaks! (1930)

*** (out of 4)

Famous explorer Paul Hoefler heads into the African Congo to trek across the land in order to see the wildlife as well as various tribes that are there.

AFRICA SPEAKS! was originally released as a documentary but over the past few decades it has been sold to fans of exploitation movies. The film offers up some nudity via the locals as well as some animal deaths so these taboo stuff was enough to make it an "exploitation" movie and it is sold as such. Obviously some people will want to avoid it since there are real animal deaths but as a documentary I thought the film worked.

The version I watched was 69-minutes, which is about six -minutes shy of the running time listed on various sites. I'm not sure if those running times are incorrect or if the print going around is actually missing some footage. It's certainly choppy at times so keep that in mind. As far as the footage, I personally thought it was great and it certainly made the picture worth viewing.

The footage of the various wildlife animals is the reason to watch this. There are some great shots of lions, giraffes, locusts, elephants and other animals and there's no question that this footage is quite raw and rather remarkable for the time. The film really lets you see what this wild lands were like back in the day and that alone makes this worth watching. We also get to see some tribes like the Ubangi and Wassara, which is another great bit of insight that we get.

As I said, there are many elements that would today be considered exploitation including the nudity as well as the animal violence. The most infamous moment in the film is when the camera crew comes under attack by some lions and apparently a man was actually killed. Some of this footage was left in the movie, which again explains why the film is sold as exploitation.

In some ways, there is a lot to like about this documentary. After all, it's one of the film to use sound footage--after many previous silent African safari films. In addition, the footage is excellent--well filmed and not chock full of stock footage like some documentaries. I liked seeing and learning about the pygmy tribes and the various animals. However, at the same time, there is an often annoying narration. Too often, the narrator tries to sound clever--making terribly unfunny jobs and supposedly glib comments. But they all come off badly and seem, at times, a bit condescending towards the subject matter--though I must also admit that the narration about the pygmies is not. It's really a shame, as with better narration, this would have been an exciting film to watch---especially since I learned some wonderful things about the animals and people of this continent....when I wasn't groaning at the narration! If you want to see it, follow the link on IMDb and you can copy it free to your hard drive since it's in the public domain.