93 minutes / Color
French / English subtitles
Release: 2017
Copyright: 1961
Included in boxset Eight Films by Jean Rouch.
At the Lycée Français of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Rouch worked with students there who willingly enacted a story about the arrival of a new white girl, Nadine, and her effect on the interactions of and interracial relationships between the white colonial French and Black African classmates, all non-actors. Fomenting a dramatic situation instead of repeating one, Rouch extended the experiments he had undertaken in Chronicle of a Summer, including having on-camera student participants view rushes of the film midway through the story. The docu-drama shows how working together to make the film changes their attitude towards each other.
About the Blu-ray: The Blu-ray release of THE HUMAN PYRAMID also includes Rouch's THE PUNISHMENT. Visit VinegarSyndrome.com to purchase this release.
"Seminal; this groundbreaking metafiction by the French ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch is as much a political experiment as an artistic one. Rouch has a keen eye for the landscape and an avid tenderness for his performers." —The New Yorker
"Somewhere between a Richard Linklater-esque hangout movie and a high-pressure debate club that touches on everything from religious justifications for slavery in America to expressions of implicit racism unique to the grammar of French ... Created a template for how a film could conduct a complex internal dialogue using only the terms of its own fascination with beauty, romance, and young bodies." —The A.V. Club
“Recommended! [Jean Rouch] navigates fiction and reality in a way that elevates both sides of the equation.” —Geek Vibes Nation
"Fascinating—and in many ways still relevant" —FlipSide Reviews
"[An] undeniably fascinating experience...When fiction and reality collide, the result isn’t always tidy, but with Jean Rouch behind the camera, it's always worth watching." —Overly Honest Movie Reviews
"I want the racists to talk like racists. For a film on robbery, I'd ask someone to steal. But even if it's a fake theft, I'd be an accomplice, even if I'm filming." —Jean Rouch, La Pyramide Humaine
Select Accolades
Newly restored! Eight of the legendary filmmaker’s key works in a 4-disc boxset, with a 24-page booklet and bonus film about Rouch in Africa.
Jean Rouch | 2017 | 604 minutes | Color | French | English subtitles
In this landmark documentary, Jean Rouch collaborates with his subjects to produce a complex portrait of Nigerien migrants in Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire.
Jean Rouch | 2012 | 70 minutes | Color | English; French | English subtitles
An aimless young woman is sent home from school with nothing to do. Drifting through the streets of Paris, she comes across a variety of people.
Jean Rouch | 1962 | 64 minutes | French | English subtitles
