Black and White in Color
Release date: 1976-09-22
Votes: 43
Genres: Drama, Comedy, War
French colonists in Africa, several months behind in the news, find themselves at war with their German neighbors. Deciding that they must do their proper duty and fight the Germans, they promptly conscript the local native population. Issuing them boots and rifles, the French attempt to make "proper" soldiers out of the Africans. A young, idealistic French geographer seems to be the only rational person in the town, and he takes over control of the "war" after several bungles on the part of the others.
Reviews
CinemaSerf
There’s something really quite fitting about the end of this film that rather sums up the whole approach to Africa that was taken by the European powers. This film is set on the Côte D’Ivoire where the war has once again pitched the adjacent French and German forces against each other. The French aren’t immediately convinced that this is remotely their war, but eventually the soldiers decide that they ought to do their bit so round up their native bearers and start handing out rifles. If it wasn’t a war for the white folks, what on Earth did it have to do with the locals? The only Monsieur with any semblance of a brain is his head is “Fresnay” (Jacques Spiesser) who’s ostensibly just there to examine the plant life, but swiftly concluding that most of that had more military savvy than the soldiers of “Sgt. Bosselet” (Jean Carmet) he takes charge. The Bosch aren’t really his problem. That’s more down to the local merchants - led by the venal “Rechampot” (Jacques Dufilho), who care only about their status, trade, wealth and their tins of sardines! It’s fair to say that the opposing forces of the Kaiser aren’t exactly raring to go on the battlefront either, so what Jean-Jacques Annaud really delivers here is a war-free war film that pokes fun at the colonial classes, the half-baked military forces that acted as their enforcers and at the levels of hypocrisy as “Fresnay” only goes and falls for an Ivorian gal, too! There isn’t really any character of note from amongst the villagers, but I thought that worked quite well as it sort of suggested they were sitting back watching their bwana-folks lurch from one silly scenario to the other whilst they just bided their time. Some of the humour is a little on the bawdy side, but for the most part this could apply to any of those nations who entered Africa in the Victorian era armed with bibles and bayonets, who treated the locals with utter contempt and who, ultimately, became sots, bullies and impotent whilst carted around as if they were Tutankhamen. It has the look of a Kinski film to it, I thought, with a convincing scruffiness and authenticity set amidst an East Africa that makes these interlopers look as ridiculous and pompous as I’m sure Annaud desired.
Movie Recommendation
Lacombe, Lucien1974-01-30In Louis Malle's lauded drama, Lucien Lacombe is a young man living in rural France during World War II who seeks to join the French Resistance. When he is rejected due to his youth, the resentful Lucien allies himself with the Nazis and joins the Gallic arm of their Gestapo. Lucien grows to enjoy the power that comes with his position, but his life is complicated when he falls for France Horn, a beautiful young Jewish woman.More...
Beethoven L'éternel2018-11-04There is no descriptionMore...
La Vouivre1989-01-11Arsène Muselier returns to his home village at the end of the First World War. His only injury is a head wound, which sometimes provokes periods of delirium and fury. As he renews his acquaintance with the people he left behind - his mother, the old farmhand who brought him up after his father's death, his former girlfriend, and many others - he becomes fascinated by the legend of La Vouivre, a creature with the body of a woman who lives in the marsh, surrounded by vipers. One day, Arsène sees the strange woman - she is naked, beautiful, alluring, and he is instantly enchanted by her. Can she be real, or is she merely a creation of his damaged mind...?More...
South Wind1959-01-01Antonio Spagara, a young Sicilian worker, has been assigned by the Mafia to murder a nobleman, Marquis Macri. But at the last minute Antonio reneges on his commitment and instead of killing the father, he flees to Palermo with Grazia, his daughter. Life is not a bed of roses in the Sicilian capital, as the young man must impose himself to face his godfather and Grazia's despotic sister Dorotea. To make matters worse, the Mafia is not going to tolerate Antonio's desertion...More...
An Autumn Afternoon1962-11-18Shuhei Hirayama is a widower with a 24-year-old daughter. Gradually, he comes to realize that she should not be obliged to look after him for the rest of his life, so he arranges a marriage for her.More...
Mindhorn2016-10-09A washed up actor best known for playing the title character in the 1980s detective show "Mindhorn" must work with the police when a serial killer says that he will only speak with Detective Mindhorn, whom he believes to be real.More...
Desperation Road2023-10-19Ex-con Russell Gaines is attempting to rebuild his life with the help of his father, Mitchell. However, the arrival of Maben sends his new life into chaos, leading the pair to go on the run - as their violent pasts catch up to them, the pair must learn to trust each other if they hope to live out the rest of their days.More...
Operation Y and Other Shurik's Adventures1965-07-24The film consists of three independent parts: "Workmate", "Déjà vu" and "Operation Y". The plot follows the adventures of Shurik (alternative spelling — Shourick), the naive and nerdy Soviet student who often gets into ludicrous situations but always finds a way out very neatly. "Operation Y and Shurik's Other Adventures" was a hit movie and became the leader of Soviet film distribution in 1965.More...
The Admiral: Roaring Currents2014-07-30Admiral Yi Sun-sin faces a tough challenge when he is forced to defend his nation with just 13 battleships against 300 Japanese enemy ships in the Battle of Myeongryang.More...
Suck Me Shakespeer 22015-09-10A rowdy teacher accompanies a class trip to Thailand to recover some diamonds accidentally sent there and restore the school's reputation.More...
Mean Girls2024-01-10New student Cady Heron is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called ‘The Plastics,’ ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George and her minions Gretchen and Karen. However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels, she finds herself prey in Regina’s crosshairs. As Cady sets to take down the group’s apex predator with the help of her outcast friends Janis and Damian, she must learn how to stay true to herself while navigating the most cutthroat jungle of all: high school.More...
Lion2017-01-01The lion has to become more physically fit. The gazelle does not think he is capable of doing so.More...
The Hill2023-08-18The story of Rickey Hill, who overcomes his physical disability and repairs his relationship with his father in a quest to become a major league baseball (MLB) player.More...
Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King2014-02-04A documentary filmmaker interviews the now-famous Trevor Slattery from behind bars.More...
Mavka: The Forest Song2023-03-02Mavka, a Soul of the Forest, faces an impossible choice between love and her duty as Guardian of the Heart of the Forest when she falls for a human, a talented young musician named Lukas.More...
Serial (Bad) Weddings 22019-01-30Claude and Marie Verneuil face a new crisis. The four spouses of their daughters, David, Rachid, Chao and Charles decided to leave France for various reasons. Here they are imagining their lives elsewhere.More...
Ride Along 22016-01-14As his wedding day approaches, Ben heads to Miami with his soon-to-be brother-in-law James to bring down a drug dealer who's supplying the dealers of Atlanta with product.More...
Kingdom 2: Far and Away2022-07-15It follows a young man who dreams of becoming a general and Ying Zheng, whose goal is unification.More...
Fifty Shades Darker2017-02-08When a wounded Christian Grey tries to entice a cautious Ana Steele back into his life, she demands a new arrangement before she will give him another chance. As the two begin to build trust and find stability, shadowy figures from Christian’s past start to circle the couple, determined to destroy their hopes for a future together.More...
Mea Culpa2024-02-22A criminal defense attorney must choose between family, duty and her own dangerous desires when she takes on the case of an artist accused of murder.More...
Similar Movies
Armour of God
1986-08-16Jackie Chan stars as Asian Hawk, an Indiana Jones-style adventurer looking to make a fortune in exotic antiquities. After Hawk discovers a mysterious sword in Africa, a band of Satan-worshipping monks kidnap his ex-girlfriend Lorelei, demanding the sword as ransom as well as other pieces of the legendary Armour of God - a magical outfit dating back to the Crusades.Flatfoot in Africa
1978-03-22Inspector Rizzo in Napoli gets a message from a policeman from South Africa who wants to meet him. Immediately before this meeting the South African policeman is killed. Dying he shows Rizzo a picture of his young son Bodo. Rizzo travels to Johannesburg to find out what the policeman was working on and to find Bodo.Zulu
1964-01-22In 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War, man-of-the-people Lt. Chard and snooty Lt. Bromhead are in charge of defending the isolated and vastly outnumbered Natal outpost of Rorke's Drift from tribal hordes.Dawn of the Damned
1965-07-05This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.A Season in Hell
1971-09-10The tumultuous life of Arthur Rimbaud, the cursed poet, who completed his masterwork at the age of twenty, became an arms dealer and died at thirty-seven; and his passionate relationship with Paul Verlaine, full of wanderings, storms and falling out.The Power of One
1992-03-27PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.Yasmina
1961-01-01"Yasmina" filmed in 1961 in the middle of the Algerian war tells the story of a little Algerian girl with her hen and her family whose father was killed in a bombing by the French colonial army of occupation. The family, after a long journey, heads towards the refugee camps on the Tunisian border. Produced by the Cinema Service of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) in the midst of the war of independence, these films were intended to re-inform the population and international public opinion on the abuses committed by the French colonial army: torture, arrests and arbitrary executions, napalm bombings, fires in douars, entire villages wiped off the map, etc. which the French media described as a "pacification" campaign. The latter censoring or reorienting any images that could harm the colonial narrative.Safari
2009-04-01Richard Dacier owns a tour agency specialized on organizing safaris for European tourists eager to confront the African wild life. Actually, he took the job after his father and never went into the savanna by himself. As he owes big money to some mobster, he is compelled to convey a fake tourist, with a suspicious suitcase, toward Mozambic. To avoid suspicion from the authorities, he is supposed to tour a group of tourists as usual. The only problem - he is completely unexperienced as a guide!Hatari!
1962-06-19A female wildlife photographer arrives on an East African reservation where a group of men trap wild animals for zoos and circuses.The Last Adventure
1967-04-12Two adventurers and best friends, Roland and Manu, are the victims of a practical joke that costs Manu his pilot's license. With seeming contrition, the jokesters tell Roland and Manu about a crashed plane lying on the ocean floor off the coast of Congo stuffed with riches. The adventurers set off to find the loot.The New World
2005-12-25A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century.Baya's Mountain
1997-12-03Set in the 1800s among the Berbers of North Africa, this 1997 Algerian feature concerns a noble widow who receives a customary purse of gold coins from the enemy tribe that murdered her husband; the gift puts her in conflict with her kinsmen, who want the money to buy back land taken by the enemy in cahoots with French colonials.The Forgotten Hill
1996-05-19At the outbreak of the Second World War, two friends, Mokrane and Menach, abruptly interrupt their studies and return to their remote native Kabylian village of Tagsa. While waiting to be drafted into the French Army they have time to woo. Mokrane falls for beautiful Aazi and soon marries her only to find out that she can bear no child. Menach, on his part, is stongly attracted to Davda, but the latter is already married to a rich merchant...Happiness does not seem to be in store for the two former students...The Wind and the Lion...
1975-05-22At the beginning of the 20th century an American woman is abducted in Morocco by Berbers, and the attempts to free her range from diplomatic pressure to military intervention.Women of Hope
1986-01-01A black and a white woman meets in Dar es Salam because of their men, and starts a friendship, despite their different background.Beasts of No Nation
2015-09-11Based on the experiences of Agu, a child fighting in the civil war of a West African country. Follows Agu's journey as he's forced to join a group of soldiers. While he fears his commander and many of the men around him, his fledgling childhood has been brutally shattered by the war raging through his country, and he is at first torn between conflicting revulsion and fascination.Yelbeedo
1990-01-01On their wedding night, a couple rescue a baby from a garbage bin only to adopt it some years later.Secret Violence
1963-02-24An Italian in East Africa having an affair with a coloured woman realises that his treatment of her is as tyrannical as more overt superior colonialist dogma. Based on a novel by Enrico Emmanuele.Under the Sign of Voo...
1974-01-01A young man having omitted to make the ritual offerings of voodoo, suffers the wrath of the spirits.The Lion King 1½
2004-10-28Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog are best pals and the unsung heroes of the African savanna. This prequel to the smash Disney animated adventure takes you back -- way back -- before Simba's adventure began. You'll find out all about Timon and Pumbaa and tag along as they search for the perfect home and attempt to raise a rambunctious lion cub.