MAITRES FOUS, LES

Year: 1957 Classification: Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG Runtime: 28 min Produced In: France Directed By: Jean Rouch Produced By: Pierre Braunberger Language: French dialogue, English subtitles
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Warning: this film includes graphic scenes of animal sacrifice.

A legendary documentary classic from Jean Rouch, one of the pivotal figures in the history of ethnographic film.

An extraordinary study of trance and spiritual possession in West Africa, and a powerful statement about the trauma of colonial rule.

The Hauku religious sect was widespread in West Africa from the 1920s to the 1950s. In their ceremonies, men became occupied by the identities of colonial figures - the governor general, the engineer, the doctor's wife, the wicked major, the corporal of the guard - and engaged in rituals that mimicked the behavior of theirFrench colonial masters.

Whilst working in West Africa, Rouch was asked by members of one Hauku group in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, to film one of their ceremonies. LES MAITRES FOUS is the outcome: a film that became a legend in ethnographic film circles, and won a major award at the 1957 Venice Film Festival.

As Rouch explains in his narration, the ritual was not theatre but reality for the working men who were members of the Hauku sect. The film’s representation of their possession is disturbing – men with rolling eyes, frothing at the mouth, using an invented language, making animal sacrifies – but as Rouch suggests, the trances provided relief from the distress of colonial oppression.

LES MAITRES FOUS is part of a collection of six films by Jean Rouch available exclusively through Ronin Films in Australia and New Zealand. The other titles in the collection are JAGUAR, LA CHASSE AU LION A L’ARC, MOI UN NOIR, PETIT A PETIT and MAMMY WATER.

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