15 mins., b&w, sound – voice-over and titles in French.
Production : Société des Films Sirius.
Source : Gaumont-Pathé archive
Text : Jolly 2014, Jolly 2016
Traversée du Sahara en autochenilles, La [The Crossing of the Sahara in Half-track Vehicles] (1923) – Paul Castelnau *
49 mins., b&w, silent – French titles and intertitles.
Production : Société anonyme André Citroën.
This film covers the first Citroën crossing of the Sahara in half-track vehicles (the ‘autochenilles’ of the title, literally ‘auto-caterpillars’). This involved five vehicles which made their way from Algiers, via Touggourt, close to the Tunisian border, and then across to Timbuktu in what is now Mali. Including the return journey, the expedition lasted for three months from December 1922 to March 1923.
The expedition involved many of the same expeditionaries who would take part in the larger and better known second Citroën crossing of the Sahara that took place the following year and which is recorded in La Croisière noire(1926). The cameraman was Paul Castelnau, who was very experienced, having been an army cinematographer in the First World War as well as working on Albert Kahn’s Archives de la planète project.
La Traversée was released in 1923. The material shot by Castelnau was then re-released in 1924 as a twelve-part series intended for educational audiences under the general title, Le Continent mystérieux. This drew on footage that had not been used in the original film and some of which was ethnographic in the broadest sense.
However, Castelnau was not considered accomplished enough to be entrusted with filming the more ambitious second Citroën expedition. For this, he was replaced by Léon Poirier, who had already made his name as a feature film director.
Text : Bloom 2006
Handful of Rice, A {En Handfull Ris} / The Man and the Woman {Man Och Kvinna} / Jungle of Chang (1940-1952) – dir. Paul Fejos and Gunnar Skogland
67 mins in the US English language version, b&w (some sepia), sound: indigenous language subtitled into English.
Production : Svensk Filmindustri and RKO Pictures. Swedish, Danish, German and UK versions were also produced.
Sources : The Danish and Swedish Film Institutes have both prints and negatives of the original version, variously entitled En Handfull Ris and Man och Kvinna. A digital copy is also available at Grängesberg, part of the Swedish National Library. The Library of Congress in Washington holds a viewable 35mm print of the English-language version, Jungle of Chang.
Content: More of a docudrama in an ethnic setting than an ethnofiction, this film tells the story of a young couple, Pó-Chai ,’The Man’, and Mé-ying, ‘The Woman’, described as being of the ‘Li’ ethnic minority and living in the interior of what was then ‘Siam’ and is now Thailand.
Initially, the film follows the couple as they attempt to make a living as rice-farmers in the face of drought and a large tiger. When the water dries up completely, Pó-Chai leaves to work as an elephant driver, extracting lumber in the forest. But Pó-Chai himself disappears from the story at this point and the film morphs into a documentary about lumber extraction using elephants.
With the return of the rains, Pó Chai also returns to the story, takes his leave from the lumber camp supervisor and returns home to Mé-Ying, purchasing a sarong for her and a buffalo on the way. But although she is very pleased to see him, the drought has taken its toll and all she has to show as a harvest is a handful of rice.
Improbably, the film then ends with a scene of Pó-Chai ploughing with the buffalo, suggesting that he and Mé-Ying will now be living happily ever after.
Background: The film was dogged by problems during production. Svenskindustri were so worried about the costs that Fejos was running up that they sent out Gunnar Skoglund – an eminent Swedish media figure who had worked before with Fejos – and insisted that he share the directorial credit.
Post-production was also tortuous. The original Scandinavian version of the film began with a scene in which a Swedish couple, about to move house, throw a handful of rice into the rubbish. This scene, clearly intended to add pathos to the film, was cut from the English-language version for the US market.
The film was also re-named Jungle of Chang (‘chang’ being the word for ‘elephant’ in Thai) in an attempt, presumably, to make a connection with the commercially highly successful Marian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack film, Chang – A Drama of the Wilderness, released in 1927.
Text : Schneider 2004.
Tribe Lives On, The {Stammen Lever Än} (1938) – dir. Paul Fejos
9:21 mins., b&w, sound: Swedish voice-over and titles, dialogues in the indigenous language.
Production : Svensk Filmindustri
An ethnofiction of considerable ethnographic authenticity shot on Sipora, an island in the Mentawai archipelago, off the west coast of Sumatra. This is one of three short ethnofictions that Paul Fejos made on Sipora during the course of his 1937-38 trip to Southeast Asia and the Far East. The others were The Chief’s Son is Dead, and The Bamboo Age of Mentawei.
Text : Petermann (2004)
Chief’s Son is Dead, The {Hövdingens son är död} (1938) – dir. Paul Fejos
10:45 mins, b&w, sound: Swedish voice-over and titles, but dialogues in indigenous language.
Production : Svensk Filmindustri
The chief’s son dies on a hunting trip: the shaman is consulted as to the reason why this happened.
One of three short ethnofictions of considerable ethnographic authenticity that Paul Fejos made on Sipora, an island in the Mentawai archipelago, off the west coast of Sumatra, in the course of a lengthy trip around Southeast Asia in 1937-38. The others were The Tribe Lives On and The Bamboo Age of Mentawei.
Text : Petermann (2004)
Bamboo Age of Mentawei, The {Bambuåldern på Mentawei} (1936) – dir. Paul Fejos
11 mins., b&w, sound: Swedish voice-over and titles.
Production : Svensk Filmindustri
Source : ?
Ethnofictional account of life on Sipora, an island in the Mentawai archipelago off the west coast of Sumatra: the House of Spirits, the shaman, a battle scene. This one of three short ethnofictions that Paul Fejos made during a long expedition around Southeast Asia in 1937-38.
Världens Mest Användbara Trad [The Most Useful Trees in the World] (1936) – dir. Paul Fejos *
9 mins., b&w, sound – voice-over commentary and titles in Swedish.
Production : Svensk Filmindustri and Nordisk Film.
This film was made in the Seychelles as a side trip from the expedition that Paul Fejos made to Madagascar in 1935. The subject of the film is the many uses to which the coconut palm may be put. Although it is beautifully shot and offers a number of idyllic scenes, there is very little on the social and cultural significance of the coconut tree and as such, it is a film of limited ethnographicness.
Text : Andersen (2017)
Sea Devil, The {Havets Djävul} (1936) – dir. Paul Fejos*
c. 10 mins., b&w, sound – voice-over and titles in Swedish.
Production : Svensk Filmindustri and Nordisk Film.
A film of limited ethnographicness about the hunting of a giant ray in the Seychelles. Shot during the expedition that Paul Fejos made to Madagascar in 1935.
Text : Andersen (2017)
Bilo, The : Funeral Ceremony in Madagascar (1936) – dir. Paul Fejos
10 mins., b&w, sound – English titles and voice-over.
Production : Nordisk
Source : ?
A film about the funeral of an Antandroy chief, southern Madagascar
Yagua (1944) – dir. Paul Fejos *
57 mins., b&w, sound: synch but not subtitled indigenous speech, and a combination of extra-diegetic music and field recorded music used intra-diegetically.
Source : Library of Congress
The Yagua are a small indigenous community whose territory lies in the Amazonian region of northeastern Peru and neighbouring parts of Colombia. Paul Fejos made this film in the course of a nine-month period of research in a Peruvian Yagua community from December 1940 to August 1941. During this time, in addition to making the film, he gathered the material that enabled him to publish a very respectable ethnographic report about the Yagua (see ‘Text’ below).
The first part of the film is based around a story of the migration of a Yagua community, from one settlement in the forest to another (though it is not at all clear what motivates this move). Two young men go ahead and scout out a suitable site, then return to lead the remainder of the community there on a large raft. The shaman remains behind and burns the old house down, but then joins the others on the raft.
However, at the new site, in an echo of the initial story of A Handful of Rice, the migrants encounter a problem, namely, that a tiger (albeit a very small one) is getting into the chicken coop. They hatch a plan to set a trap to catch the animal, which after various failed attempts, they eventually do. The tiger is then killed, its skin stretched out on a frame, and the film ends with a ceremonial celebration of entirely dubious authenticity.
The story of this film is very weak, and many of the cultural practices shown are inventions of the film-maker (including most probably the raft expedition). But the actors are obviously indigenous people and they perform – both women and men – in a remarkably unselfconscious manner, even when they are doing things that they would not normally do. Equally remarkably, they are speaking their own language, in synch, though it is neither subtitled nor voiced over, so it is often difficult to know what they are saying.
Text : Fejos 1943
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