MONGOOSE V. SNAKE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 April 1942, Page 4

MONGOOSE V. SNAKE

PARABLE FOR NATIVES. SPECIAL WAR FILMS. ______ Africa’s native peoples are to be shown up-to-date news reels of the war made specially for them so that they can be understood by those to whom a bombing plane and a Bren gun arc equally mysterious. These new pictures are the result of 15 years’ study of the African’s reactions to films made by Mr W. Sellers, M.8.E., of Britain’s Colonial Film Unit.

Travelling with a mobile cinema unit from one village in Nigeria and •elsewhere to another, Mr Sellers found ' the natives baffled by the swiftness of 1 the sequences. Too much was left to be inferred. The ordinary cinema enthusiast who sees a shot taken on a battleship appreciates that the sea is just off the picture. The African has to have this explained to him with views of the sea and the ship. So too the Allied cause is explained by parable. The film shows a fight to the death between a mongoose and a snake, Mr Churchill being the mongoose and Hitler the snake. At first the mongoose has a tough time of it, but by biding his time he kills the snake in the end. , A favourite film is “Mr English at Home,” so arranged that Africans can appreciate through their own family lives how white men live. ' Today 18 mobile cinema units are touring the African colonies showing to audiences ranging from a few hundred to as many as 15,000. They are staffed by educated native commentators. A complete sound track is difficult because of the variety of languages and dialects which are, however, being gradually introduced.