Review: Africa Addio (1966)

I have an extensive list of movies to watch that sparked my interest somehow. I don’t keep notes on why I wanted to watch them, or where I first learned about them. Most often, enough time passes that when I finally get to watch it, I have no idea what’s it about. It ends up being a good strategy, since I get to see it with completely fresh eyes.

This week I got to watch Africa Addio (1996), or Africa: Blood and Guts.

Africa Addio is an Italian documentary about the effects of the end of the European Colonial Era in Africa. Right at the beginning it sets its tone, saying that “Europe has abandoned its baby when it needed the most” or something like that, reverberating that adage that Europe made 2 mistakes in Africa: colonizing it, and then leaving it behind.

Technically it’s a pretty good movie, with a superb artsy photography that gets their point across.

There’s one part where the English (I think) are selling their stuff to the new African elites, where the narrator implies that the Africans don’t know what to do with it, since they are just mimicking the European elites. Which reminded me of Rene Girard’s mimetic desire theory.

Speaking of Girard, the whole Scapegoat thing can also be seen as a motivation for the blame on the Colonialists (or “whites”). Of course, without no doubt colonialism is/was bad. But it also reminded me of the Brazilian/Portuguese population using their politicians/immigrants/digital nomads as a scapegoat.

Don’t get me wrong, I am Brazilian, with black AND indigenous ascendency, so I understand how the past affects us. However, there’s a point we need to be more realistic and stop blaming everything on the past and start focusing on future. One common argument I often hear (and cringe) is that “Brazil never had a chance because it was an exploitation colony, whereas the US was a colonization colony!”. But I digress, see the Leitura ObrigaHISTÓRIA video if you are interested in learning why that’s a bs argument.

Back to the movie, although it managed to catch really interesting journalistic scenes, like the Arab massacre in Zanzibar, it sometimes feel like the timing is too good to be true, like when they got footage of the population killing hippos, elephants and other animals. Which by the way is a pretty gruesome scene, be aware.

A somewhat funny part is when they are in Tanzania and get captured, and are only saved from execution because “They are not whites, they are Italians!”.

But let’s be real, this movie is incredibly racist, portraying Africans as savages, violent, superstitious, incapable of managing their own countries. That being said, if you can get past the propaganda, there’s enough material to make you reflect for a long time.

My final review is I liked it, but would not watch again. I don’t recommend it for the non-mature audience, more susceptible to propaganda. I don’t want to lose more friends to the alt-right :)

There’s some versions floating on Youtube if you want to watch it.