Subtitled version of Jean Rouch's fundamental classic of visual anthropology "Les maîtres fous" ("The mad masters"), 1955.
This documentary shows how a possession ritual helps people to deal with the shock of colonialism in Ghana (Africa). This milestone in cultural anthropology, often seen as Jean Rouch's masterpiece, shocked its first spectators for numerous reasons. Some of them feared the image of "savagery" displayed during this somewhat violent ritual. Some others were hurt by the representations of the colonial power that are explicited by these "spirits" through their theatralisation. Rouch's technical approach of ethnographical filming (the "cine-transe") was also quite a revolution at a time where anthropological film-makers still tended to believe in the objectivity of static and distant shoots.
