The Other Voices ofDocumentary: Allah Tantouand Afrique, je te plumeraiN. Frank Ukadike

reviewing the history of cinema and documentary film practice, one finds alttern of deliberate mockery of Africans and their historical traditions andutures by Western filmmakers. This pattern upholds an insistence on usingsual images for the purpose of so-called scientific documentation. In fact, crit-s have observed that most documentary films, specifically ethnographic andIlthropological films, are mere spectacles constructed to titillate Western view-~s.At best, they serve as fragments of reality, depending on the nature of the:~alor what one conceives of as the real.l

This chapter examines new African documentary practices and the strategies[sedin the construction of cinematic "reality" of Africa in the context of twollmS:Allah Tantou (God's Will, 1991) by David Achkar (Guinea); and Afrique,;~te plumerai (Africa, I Will Fleece You, 1992) by Jean-Marie Teno (Cameroon).I'hesefilms are considered in relation to their theoretical contexts so as to re-lefinethe relationship between the dominant (Western) and oppositional (pan-'\fricanist) cinematic representations of Africa. A critical issue at stake is whether:henew African documentaries can be wholly comprehended without fathom-ingthe radically divergent ways in which the pan-Africanist imagery positions:he subject, the viewer, and the filmmaker to promote spectator participation.[n addition to stressing the documentaries' manifestations as social art, I willconsider their inventive approaches to issues of formal structuration, experi-mental modalities, and modes of address.

African documentary seeks to interrogate the African experience; the docu-mentary frame presents what might be seen as a transparent window on history,culture, and other issues of resistance. The social issues, cultural values, andpolitics of the African world are portrayed with both sensitivity and realism.It is this connection between the documentary and the real circumstances de-picted, between the filmmaker and the subject/audiences, that is the most dis-tinctive characteristic of this genre. I will argue that the passion for truth stemsfrom the penchant for historical accuracy and communicability, hence the im-pact of "the belief that what is seen (and heard) is the essence of what is, andof what is knowable about what is" (Burton 1990,77), which forms the basisfor African historical truth.

Bill Nichols's observation regarding the dichotomous relationship be- .tween fiction and documentary film is germane to our discourse. He notes that"if narratives invite our engagement with the construction of a story, set in animaginary world, documentary invites our engagement with the constructionof an argument, directed toward the historical world" (1991, 118). The hegem-ony of the colonizer relative to the colonized peoples has, in conjunction withthe history of oppression, institutionalized social differentiation and inequality.This imbalance has also promoted the assumption that colonial histories offera privileged perspective from which to analyze both worlds. Countering thisassumption implies the demystification of colonial histories, exposing theirmethod of reification, objectification, and representation of the "Other:' Hence,the quest for African cinematic reality (the image) in film has produced a genreof social documentary meant to combat the false image presented by traditionalcin~ma. In attempting to confront the distortion, the perspectives of "alterna-tive" cinema specify an ideological mission that functions as a specific mandatein reexamining hegemonic power relations.

Stating that "narrativity emerges as a fundamental condition that binds to-gether all three representational practices-history, documentary, and the fic-tion film:' Philip Rosen argues that "meaning arises through a process of se-quentation which is constitutive of historical discourse" (qtd. in Renov 1993a,2). This latter concern, as Rosen rightly points out, has been an integral com-ponent that documentary theory and practice have embraced since the time ofJohn Grierson, founder of the British documentary movement. But the truth isthat documentary films about Africa have also privileged fiction at the expenseof authentic history in exactly the same way that the history and theory address-ing the genre most often ignore the willful destruction of the relationship thatnon-Western subjects enjoyed in early documentary experiments.2 These flawsresult from an inability to comprehend the complex relationship between his-tory and culture, which requires patience and integrity to circumnavigate. Aswe shall show, it is from this perspective that we locate the mission of Africancinema, specifically the documentary genre.

The development of cinema in Africa is directly connected to both historicalcircumstances and movements in film practices. There is a relationship betweenhistory/politics in society and history/politics in the text, which may culminatein the decolonization of the screen and the repositioning of the cinema as thesite for what critics are calling political contestation. A concerted effort to crys-tallize national struggles and identities may be an indication of a society thatis moving to regain its belief in itself. This belief had been shattered by the"[un]humanitarian uses of the cinema:'3 entrenched in the standard narrativeand visual structure of the dominant tradition, which the "alternative" rein-venting representations of Africa now seek to reverse.

Western methods applied to the construction of African film images consti-

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tute what might be termed spurious art, antithetical to the longings of a genialart that indigenous cultural productions predicate. Afrique and Allah Tantou con-trast sharply with many films, both documentary and fiction, that have madeAfrica their focal point. For example, in the two popular films used in Americanclassrooms, Reassemblage (1982) by Trinh T. Minh-ha and Unsere Afrikareise(1961-66) by Peter Kubelka, the African lives proffered make a mockery ofhuman intelligence. In Reassemblage, for instance, which obfuscates Africansubjectivity, the all-knowing voice of God in the film is that of an itinerantdocent-a Peace Corps volunteer, the filmmaker herself. Similarly, Unsere Afri-kareise, heralded by Constance Penley and Andrew Ross (1985) for its "innova-tive" editing technique, and by Michael Renov for "shar[ing] with mainstreamdocumentary a commitment to the representation of the historical real" (1993b,34), deliberately disregards African sensibility. Here an African is used as a standto hold the White man's rifle as it blasts its salvo right next to his ear to hit alion. Moreover, the Austrians in the film, who constantly ridicule the Africans,exhibit themselves as racists and poachers, their manners no less animalisticthan the giraffes they slaughter mercilessly in their Kenyan safari. The film-maker's bias is epitomized in a shot where the long neck of one of the giraffesis contrasted with the elongated necklaces adorning an African woman. Yet thisblatant racist and sexist image is not even mentioned by the critics who admirethe film for its cinematic inventiveness.

Most attacks on such works focus on the abuse of authorial power, an abusethat in turn invalidates claims to documentary authenticity. Elements of au-thenticity can be found in segments of any film, but this does not mean that thesegment carries the full weight of the entire film. The question is, should theaudience or critics capitalize on the importance of a film's particular stylistictendency at the expense of the elements that have vitiated the reality that thefilm ought to be exposing? History has proved this to be true if we rememberthe virulent impact of D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915), Luis Bunuel'ssardonic Land Without Bread (1932), Jean Rouch's The Mad Masters (1953), orTerry Bishop's Daybreak in Udi (1949)-all of which were vehemently protestedor criticized because of their racism but nonetheless classified as,"masterpieces"and classics.

How does one know that certain aspects of history and culture have beenmisrepresented, and why does the audience see the images presented differentlyfrom the perspectives of the filmmaker? I have argued elsewhere that it mightbe theoretically correct to polemicize authorial interventions with intriguingtheories, as some artists have done when they try to help the consumer under-stand their "complex" approaches to visual representation.4 However, in the vis-ual and performing arts, one would have to agree that ~he image speaks louderthan, say, the voice-over in any documentary film or the polemical treatise thatexplains or miseducates the audience. (It is ironic that frequently the theoriesderiving from most films also create mental confusion for readers.)

For the critical observer, issues concerning selectivity (choice of shots/image),and intrusion (method of selecting) play important roles in deciphering any

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work of art. In the case of film, this observation applies to the use of camera,composition, and the way the footage has been assembled to convey meaning.Since film has always been an ideological project, it cannot be politically neutral.Its ideological subjectivity also prepares the curious observer to think abouthow methodology influences what is presented on the screen (the cinematicsign) and what was out there in the open (the referent).

While many African fiction films are structured as fictional narratives, theyexhibit a documentary/fictional synthesis. Stylistically, we find here reminis-cences of treatment that recalls Latin American documentary film practice. Forexample, such early films as Afrique"sur-Seine (Africa on the Seine, 1955) byPaulin Soumanou Vieyra (Benin/Senegal); La Noire de... (Black Girl, 1966) andMandabi (1968) by Ousmane Sembene (Senegal); Last Grave at Dimbaza (1974)by Nana Mahomo (South Africa); and Harvest: 3,000 Years (1976) by HaileGerima (Ethiopia) are inundated with a documentary mode of address. Thejuxtaposition of fiction and documentary images embeds the diegesis in oraltradition and heightens the emotional impact. Like their Latin American coun-terparts, African filmmakers believe in the political use of film and see less en-tertainment value in films than Hollywood does. If anything connects Africanand Hollywood films, it is that African cinema is directly related to the resultsof earlier movements in film practices and historical circumstanc;es.

The rise of the realistic and formalistic tendencies-neorealism, docudrama,and Marxist dialectics-expedited the dissolution of the line between fictionand reality, between documentary and ethnographic film practice, and, I mayadd, stressed the anomalies of representation-the North and South dichotomy.From this perspective I have argued that although African films exhibit hybridconvention-those originating from Hollywood, Russian Socialist dialectics,Italian neorealism, and avant-garde traditions-no single stylistic criterion pre-dominates. Therefore, any critical component applied to the evaluation of thisfilm practice must also consider how these syncretic "master codes" are disar-ticulated by the cultural codes embedded in the oral tradition (Ukadike 1993).

From the very beginning of filmmaking, some of the above distinctions al-ready began to emerge to address the visual polarities and characteristics of Lu-miere's Workers Leaving the Factory (1895) and Melies's A Trip to the Moon(1902). While Lumiere's film was believed to have captured an unmediatedevent, Melies extended the potential of the cinematic apparatus beyond the cap-ture of "physical reality" (Kracauer 1960) to encompass a rearrangement offilmed events. This counterhegemonic impulse has greatly influenced filmmak-ing ever since.

In the African sector, in oral art, film production, and other cultural produc-tions, an event can be rearranged without necessarily distorting the meaning asconnected with the historical, social, and political realities. This intervention isappreciated for radiating the fictional impulse in the process of enhancing thecreative and didactic value of the intended message. On this level, film watchingbecomes synonymous with history lessons; it is instilled with culturally specificcodes and awareness, rendering this tradition unabashedly political. This is why,

depending on the circumstances that have influenced a film's production, audi-ence acceptability is a given. Hence, the polemical discourse around documen-tary veracity would also take a new approach. What is generally discernible asa documentary in dominant analysis assumes another name, a filmed essay indocumentary dialect, a topic that will recur in the subsequent sections of thischapter.

Historical Specificity: Documentary ConscienceFilms from the Francophone zone popularized African fiction film and

the didactic trend, and although documentary segments interspersed most nar-ratives, the documentary never manifested itself as a common genre. It is in theAnglophone and Lusophone regions that documentary film continues to thrive-unfortunately, at the expense of fiction film. However, documentary filmpractice had different agendas in these regions. The practice of the Anglophoneregion was modeled after the British colonial pattern of instructional film-making-documenting the activities of the ruling oligarch, praise-singing evenwhen there was no genuine development to boast of. The practice of the Luso-phone region was much more focused-film was accorded the status of weaponof liberation in the war against Portugal. Pedro Pimenta, assistant director ofthe Mozambique Film Institute (Instituto Nacional de Cinema, or INC) felici-tously remarked that it is necessary to change the dominant image to "producea new thing, the product of a new ideology" (Taylor 1983, 30). This productionof a "new thing" came to mean as much for Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mo-zambique as socialist film ideology meant for Russia-in this case leading to theacquisition of a documentary film practice engendered in Africanist/Socialistideology.

As an emancipatory project, African cinema has always concerned itself withwide-ranging issues-from decolonization of history and liberation, to Africa'sresistance against oppression. During the first decade of African film practice,this concern specifically manifested itself in anticolonialist projects. After inde-pendence, however, when African elites proved to be even more perfidious thanthe colonial administrators they replaced, cinema placed all contemporary is-sues on its agenda. As Harold W. Weaver has pointed out, there developed "acinema of contestation between the filmmakers and the political leadership"(1982,85). Some of the films that were extremely critical of the establishmentwere censored, and some filmmakers embarked on social criticism only afterthe political leadership was driven out of office or eliminated through naturalcauses. One such instance was Allah Tantou, which was made in Guinea. Boththis film and Afrique are remarkable for the manner in which they address largerissues of continental dimensions.

Two elemental analyses can be set in motion: the first is contextual and con-cerns the forces bearing on the production of films-the social institutions andproduction practices that construct media images of Africa; the second entailspersonal/ideological manifestations as a synthesis of the collective struggle

against oppression. Four principal characteristics in documentary film practicedefine this agenda:

1. Authority: a metadiscourse referring to the validity of the subject's treat-ment, or even the legitimacy of the filmmaker, and his/her knowledge and re-lation to the issues being portrayed;

2. Transparency: embodying the processes of introspection, as in "lookingin" (hence sul:werting the original meaning of the term, "transparency" -thatwhich appears to be mere recording), and presenting issues as transparent win-dows on the world, raising and increasing public awareness;

3. Immediacy: the reflection of "nowness;' the subject's or viewer's relation-ship to the present, which may involve the invocation of past events to explainthe present situation, or even the use of present events to amplify past events inorder to make them more immediate;

4. Authenticity: almost synonymous with reality, an expression of the film-maker's truthfulness in presenting the real, questioning societal norms, and in-creasing public awareness of issues and dichotomies.s

Allah Tantou and Afrique have used their structures to transform these filmicattributes to further cinematic scrutiny of the African issues depicted, which,in turn, forcefully informs and moves the audience. In their respective ways,each film uses creative modes of address and conventions of traditional docu-mentary cinema, but each is recontextualized to offer a means of challengingthe nature of representation. This can be seen, for example, when footage origi-nally broadcast to promote colonialist or neocolonialist propaganda is given anew meaning. The films are reconfigured as turn-around images, refurbished asveritable critiques of colonialist/repressive ideologies. Before we analyze thesedocumentaries in more detail, however, it is pertinent to consider some criticalassumptions of the documentary film practice since they are bound to influencemy approach, particularly in relation to my understanding of how certain con-ventions may have been appropriated or subverted.

Bill Nichols (1991) points out that in documentary film practice, of the"dominant organizational patterns around which most texts are structured;'four modes of production stand out: "expository;' "observational;' "interac-tive," and "reflexive." He notes that in this paradigm, the expository text speaksto the viewer "directly, with titles or voices" that are meant to convey progressivethoughts "about the historical world:' The voice-over narration, dubbed "voice-of-God" or "talking heads," presents objectively persuasive arguments. The ob-servational mode is more directly connected with "direct cinema" or cinemaV{~riteand "stresses the nonintervention of the filmmaker;' who relinquishescontrol of the image to the unobtrusive camera. In the interactive mode, thecoalition of monologue and dialogue predominate in the narrative, and thereby"textual authority shifts toward the social actors recruited;' thus, "putting theactors into direct encounter with the filmmaker;' involving participation, con-versation, or interrogation. Lastly, the reflexive mode of representation positionsthe viewer to experience the method or process of representation and actively

Allah Tantou (1991) byDavid Achkar (Guinea).Photo courtesy of Califor-nia Newsreel.

stimulates awareness of both the cinematic form and the issues inherent in thetext.6

The modes of representation described above also apply to African docu-mentary film pr;l,ctice.What is most interesting in Nichols's theory, however, ishis contention that reflexivity "need not be purely formal; it can also be point-edly political." As he states: "[W] hat works at a given moment and what countsas a realistic representation of the historical world is not a simple matter of pro-gress toward a final form of truth, but of struggles for power and authoritywithin the history arenas itself" (1991, 33).

In this respect, the structures of Allah Tantou and Afrique reveal a deliberateapplication of mixed modes of address, with filmmakers opting for a combina-tion of two or more of the above characteristics in one film. "Since few docu-mentaries are pure examples of their form," observes Burton, a mixed or mul-tiple mode of address "is the category in which most documentaries will fall-those from an oppositional tradition that encompass experimentation, inno-vation, and marginality all the more abundantly" (1990, 5). This statement alsoalludes to the interrogation of cinematic codes and dominant cinematic prac-tices. In oppositional structures, experimentation with technique conforms withthe search for new organizing principles in the construction of a new image.

Afrique, je te plumerai(Africa, I Will Fleece You,1992) by Jean-Marie Teno(Cameroon) .Photo courtesy ofCalifornia Newsreel.

When the filmic criteria work, they strengthen the rapport between the film-maker and the spectator-a rapport, as cultural producers and critics in the de-veloping world have argued, that could not be realized with the cinematic codesoriginating from formal structures.

Both documentaries pointedly present themselves as prototypes of Africaninvestigation-in-progress (Burton's term). By using cinematography, sound, andcommentaries to scrutinize present history and issues, they not only contributeto the resuscitations of popular memory but also construct an active audienceas witnesses of that history. The unconventional structures of Allah Tantou andAfrique stem from the juxtaposition of documentary with fictional images, andfrom narrative discontinuity. In the dominant tradition of African cinema, thefictional and the documentary coexist to illuminate and expand the borders ofreality. Similarly, in the documentaries discussed here, documentary reality isinfused with fictional images to achieve the same goal. But what would seemon the surface to be a melange of film styles (documentary, experimental, andnarrative; montage editing, lighting, alternation of silence and sound) becomesa cohesive film that expresses significant, deep-rooted issues.

Although the method of representation is imaginative, the subject matter isreal. As historical reenactment, these two films are also very reflexive. In each

case, the film begins with a voice-of-God type of narration; however, the imagesquickly take control, transforming it to a kind of voice-of-the-people presenta-tion. Much of the dialogue and monologue is premeditated; and the back-ground and dramatic sequences, staged. Yet in both films the dialogue, mQno-logue, and off-screen voice-over deal with real issues. Allah Tantou exposes thelies propagated in the official account of the death of Marof Achkar, father ofthe filmmaker, and the suppression of individual freedoms by Guinea's tyran-nical regime. Similarly, Afrique reveals the colonialist and neocolonialist meth-ods of exploitation and subjugation. At times the artistry renders some of themesmerizing sequences of torture too ethereal or attractive for the viewer, butit is this enchantment that also compels the viewer to examine, confront, andcontemplate the real images behind the illusion.

The viewer sees the actor in Allah Tantou playing David's father, the chiaro-scuro effect of the lighting throwing him almost offscreen to haunt the viewer.However, the impact lies, not in the lighting itself, but rather in the darkness ofthe torture cell, which signifies a dark moment in history. For the viewer in-grained in Western realist aesthetics, it is the dissonance of this thought in re-lation to the artistry of the lighting effect in the background that forces him orher to reflect on its artificiality. In pondering its effect, it is not unreasonable tobe skeptical about the impact of art in such a fictional/historical reenactment,but it is the fusion of reality (the fact that Achkar languished and died in jail)and fiction (the reenactment and artistic magnification of the mood in his cell)that compels the viewer to concentrate oll'the message and the details of theargument. Robert Stam has argued that "reflexive works break with art as en-chantment and call attention to their own factitiousness as textual constructs"(1992, 1).Here in Allah Tantou, it is the mental anguish illuminated with artisticdevices, not the beauty of the sequence, that enables the viewer to share theexperience of the tortured victim.

Allah Tantou is an autobiographical film that uses personal reflections to ex-amine a dark chapter in Guinea's history. It is also the first African film to ad-dress human rights abuses in the African continent outside of South Africa? Inthe study of documentary theory and practice, critics have noted that the "auto-biographical documentary consists of evidentiary sound/image constructions"(Lane 1993,21) that focus on "oneself or one's family, and the subject of thefilm and filmmaker often begins with a level of trust and intimacy neverachieved or even attempted in other films" (Katz and Katz 1988, 120, qtd. inLane 1993,21).

In Allah Tantou, David Achkar mobilizes a search for his father in the "Guin-ean past, his father's search for himself inside prison, and Africa's search for anew beginning amid the disillusionment of the post-independence era."8 The-matically, this is a unique film in that it sheds light on important aspects ofAfrican history that would otherwise not be told. For example, the image ofSekou Toure, as we know him in the West, is that of first president of Guineaand undaunted pan-Africanist. But inside his empire stood the gigantic and in-famous Camp Boiro Prison, where political detainees languished and wasted

away without trial. As the film shows, no official explanation is provided forthose who died.

Because Achkar had been charged with treason and jailed, his family wasobliged to flee into exile, and it was not until after President Toure died thatAchkar's family was told that their relative had long since been executed. Ironi-cally, he who championed his country's crusade against apartheid at the timehe was Guinea's ambassador to the United Nations would suffer exactly the kindof maltreatment against which he had spoken. The filmmaker constructs audioand visual images of his father's state of mind, his anguish, his personal criti-cism, and self-evaluation, and his spiritual transformation from Islam to Chris-tianity. This ordeal is meticulously expressed because of David's own personalinvolvement and because of the recovery of his father's secret "memoir;' whichwas written in jail and which aided in the story's reconstruction. The "memoir,"an archival gold mine-horrifying and introspective as the account undoubt-edly is-has the impact of an historical document of significant value. And ifindeed, according to Nichols, "documentary offers access to a shared, historical

rconstruct;' it is accurate to say that "instead of a world;' Allah Tantou gives us"access to the world" (Nichols 1991,109).

If Allah Tantou is a historical film that addresses, by implication, the appallinghuman rights record in Africa, Afrique is an intensive study of one nation's his-tory, that of Cameroon. However, Afrique offers a continent-wide critique ofcolonialism, especially cultural colonialism, and openly calls on Africans to re-claim what is theirs. According to Angelo Fiombo and his colleagues, "Africatoday is linked to the past by a close cause/effect bond: from colonial violenceto the single political party, from repression to intolerance." It is from this per-spective, they go on to note, that Afrique verifies this claim with cinematicpyrotechnics: "In a skillful melange of contemporary images, fiction, importantperiod documents and precious reconstruction, the director ventures in the cor-ridors, often forbidden, of the memory of his country, with a will to reaffirmthat 'right to speak' which has been denied too long" (1992, 29).

Reminiscent of The Hour of the Furnaces (Argentina, 1968) by FernandoSolanas and Octavio Getino, Afrique employs multiple conventions, mixing ele-ments of caustic satire, comedy, music, straightforward didacticism, and neo-realistic camera work. The film does not simply ask Africans to wake up to thechallenges ahead; it indicts tyranny through a critique of colonial decadencemade comprehensible from colonial and neocolonial histories.

Teno, the filmmaker, had originally intended to make a film about Africanpublishing. After witnessing the brutal suppression of public demonstrations inCameroon, however, he decided "to examine language as either a tool of libera-tion or of domination." He went on to state that "in confiscating language, inreducing language to codes accessible only to the minority, it becomes easier tosilence and exploit the people" (qtd. in Library 1993,4). Before the film's titleappears on screen, a teaser provides the viewer with a brief synopsis of the en-tire movie. It is early morning, and an intimidating voice-over ("Yaounde, youinspire shame-Cruel city, city of official lies") introduces the viewer to the

routine life in this boisterous capital. A hand-held camera maneuvers jerkilythrough the crowd. We are told that the situation is similar in various big citiesand that one death has already occurred. A scene from archival footage takes usback to the 1960 independence celebration, where we witness 'people dancingwith joy at their freedom. The first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, acknowledgesthe crowd's greetings. He dies, and Paul Biya takes over, eventually imposingironfisted control, with repressive crackdowns and concomitant upheavals. Thissegment summarizes the history of Cameroon.

Afrique inundates the viewer with a barrage of images. They are not collagesof images in the usual sense, but historical documents and political manifestoes.This strategy is a calculated way of presenting complex histories. The film iscarefully researched, emanating as it does from the filmmaker's understandingof the colonial history before his birth, extending into his present life, and mademore incisive from his hybrid stance-his status as an exile living in Paris. Tenocreates a metacinema that draws from the archival propaganda newsreel imagesof the colonial media. This cinema, constituting an unintentional critique of itsown history, is evolved by powerful images compelling the viewer to understandthe media's impact on African consciousness; it shows how that consCiousnesswas eroded over the years, paving the way for the creation of more young evo-lues.9 Too often Western news media-including films and documentaries-have failed to probe African problems; rather, they report them in a prejudicedand biased manner. Says Teno: "I wanted to trace cause and effect between theintolerable present and the colonial violence of yesterday to understand howa country could fail to succeed as a state which was once composed of well-structured, traditional societies" (Library 1993, 4).

Many scenes in the film foreground these concerns. They can be examinedfrom the privileged position of the oral tradition and works written in the earlyCameroonian alphabet,1Ofrom the official Cameroonian information network,from foreign print media, and from television.

In another sequence, Afrique focuses on the dearth of African-authored booksin Yaounde when a young lady reporter discovers that there are only a handfulof books written by Africans in the French Cultural Center, the British Council,and the Goethe Institute libraries. Even audiovisual and children's book sectionscontained holdings relating only to Europe. Despite the establishment of sophis-ticated printing presses, thirty years after independence Cameroon and otherAfrican countries still import books from Europe. Although the film did notexamine this important issue after the economic developments of the past eightyears or so when African economies began to be mortgaged to the IMF andWorld Bank, new forms of slavery and economic subjugation have emerged.Indeed, it is increasingly difficult to manufacture books in Africa due to IMF-imposed "Structural Adjustment Programs" and currency devaluations.

If lack of books written from the African perspective is one area that con-tinues to promote Western hegemony, the influence of electronic media is evenmore devastating. Afrique identifies this problem. Just as the filmmaker recallshis youth reading Western comics and being told in school and at home to study

hard so as to become White, so too television continues at an alarming rate tobecome the arbiter of cultural change. Consider the scene where the director ofCameroon National Television asks the producer of Afrique how much he willpay to have his film shown on television. The producer brags that" Dallas andfilms [sic] like Dynasty, Chateauvallon, Derrick, and Mademoiselle, are offeredto us free, and the people love it."ll

In both films we find a constant shift in the voice of authority, as the formof narration turns to what we might term a filmed essay in documentary dialect.The many kinds of presentation within the films, such as dramatic qarrative, al-legorical monologue, and film-within-a-film, diversify the authoritative voice.These forms are also evocative of multiple voices, as in Africa's oral tradition,which appropriates many forms of representation in its abundant use of cultur-ally established iconographical codes of explication. Since the inception of Af-rican cinema, oral tradition has formed the basis of its cultural and aestheticgrounding. It is interesting that the structure of both films, particularly that ofAllah Tantou, is indebted to this traditional technique of disseminating knowl-edge. In returning to the actual impact of oral tradition, we find that oral artcan bear upon the method of narration, including repetition of dialogue andimages, satire and dramatization; the primary result is to externalize the text,validating the voices of authority by neutralizing their hierarchy.

Afrique and Allah Tantou position African filmmakers and audiences in aworld dominated by injustice, and they offer a vehement and sardonic critiqueof the oppressive mechanisms of power. Both use a variety of cinematic ap-proaches to examine history, the self, and the collective in that history, as domany African fiction films. Allah Tantou is especially concerned with the familyand with the filmmaker's position in it. Although it does not seem to involvethe collective, the state apparatus that tore Achkar's family apart has nationaland international implications. For example, by juxtaposing newsreels of recog-nizable Third World liberation leaders-Castro, Kenyatta, Lumumba, and Nas-ser-with Achkar's prison experience, the film resonates with memories of "tes-timony of existence and struggle;' in Teshome Gabriel's terms (1989,64). In thisway one is also forced to think about all those other people who have diedfighting for just causes, "those unrecorded and unremembered millions of Af-ricans" who have disappeared (Library 1993, 9).

By contrast, Afrique takes a different approach in its questioning of historyand the positioning of the self in that history. Unlike Allah Tantou, it confrontsthe collective head-on. The film emphasizes historical and contemporary Euro-pean hegemony and cultural domination in Cameroon, particularly in print andelectronic media, and urges Africans to "reclaim their culture as well as theirpolitical and economic institutions in order to achieve true independence fromEurope and the West" (Clark 1993, 1158). That is a positively conclusive state-ment directed toward achieving a specific goal. The title Allah Tantou means"God's Will" -a denomination as speculative and restrictive as the events it de-picts. For some critics, this is why the film "refuses to construct an authoritativenarrative space/time" (Library 1993, 8). The director is careful not to alienate

his audience. In fact, it is the clever juxtaposition of "fragments of contrasting,sometimes contradictory, texts into a resonant collage of home movies, news-reels, a forced confession, a prison journal ... and his own dramatization of hisfather's prison experience" (8) that maximizes the cumulative impact.

In essence, the strategies employed by both films prove that every documen-tary is equally a product of its period. The biases of the time, the place, and theconcerns of individual filmmakers all work to dismantle the myths of objectiveor subjective documentation. The legacy of these multi-accentuated works ofart provides for new ways of exploring the African experience.

This chapter is reprinted from iris 18 (1995): 81-94.1. See, for example, Rayfield 1984.2. The French pathologist-turned-anthropologist Felix-Louis Regnault (the first

practitioner of ethnographic filmmaking) had good intentions for the use of cinema forcross-cultural study of movement. His earlier experiments dating back to 1895, the sameyear the moving image was first projected.to paying audiences, involved studies of Afri-cans that he contrasted with images of peoples from other great civilizations such asEgypt, India, and Greece. Shortly thereafter, subsequent foreign filmmakers turned Af-rica into exotic decor. See Brigard 1975.

3. This statement originates from Paul Rotha's contention that "Hollywood did lit-tle to further the humanitarian uses of cinema" (cited in Nichols 1991, 108).

4. Vertov's theory in relation to his socialist cinematic practices is a clear example,but theoretical tendencies such as this are gaining prominence among avant-garde film-makers, who sometimes use theory to give meaning to what otherwise would have beenmeaningless images except for the aesthetic orientations.

5. Although the four characteristics mentioned are pivotal to the dominant film andmedia practices, their application to this chapter is influenced by Koberna Mercer's re-formulations of the terms. I also acknowledge the views Of students in my Cultural Issuesin Cinema classes about these concepts and their applications to the discourse of theBlack British Cinema. '

6. See Nichols 1991, chapter 2, "Documentary Modes of Representation;' 32ff.7. End of the Dialogue (1969) and Last Grave at Dimbaza (1974) are well-known

films made by Nana Mahomo about apartheid.8. As described in the catalogue Library of African Cinema 1993-1994 (1993, 8).9. Before independence and during the early years after independence, the assimi-

lated class consisted of the few educated elite. This number is now rapidly growing: moreand more Africans seeking better lives outside of the continent are leaving in droves,creating a more assimilated class of people. Even those in their respective classes findthey cannot hide from the onslaught of foreign influences: radio, TV, billboard advertis-ing, and textiles (T-shirts, etc.) are Western oriented.

10. One scene shows that before colonialist intervention there already existed an in-digenous system of writing-the Sho-mon alphabet developed in 1885 by Sultan Ngoya.It was taught in schools until 1914 when French imperialists outlawed it and introducedtheir own.

11. After the Gulf War, CNN extended its services to China, India, and Africa,among other countries. In Nigeria, for example, rich people who can afford cable TV do

not waste their time tuning in to the poorly produced Nigerian Television Auth<(NTA) programs. CNN and BBC provide the news, and MTV provides the entertment-to the detriment of the children. In hotels and restaurants, MTV, which rpeople equate with decadence, plays twenty-four hours a day.

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