Our Trip To Africa (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #28 extract: Our Trip To Africa (1966)

Without diegesis, a strict and cohesive space, narrative or atmosphere, Our Trip To Africa seems to bring a discordant vision of an African safari vacation to the screen. In such, without any synced, or particularly sensical, sound this depicts various snippets of hunting scenes spliced into voyeuristic shots of African natives. The lack of harmony and the radically disparate 'spaces' (which are implied through montage and sound) in this film seemingly comment on the travelogue and ethnographic film, insinuating that the documentation of such trips has little to do with the land being visited, nor the people and animals that exist upon it. Our Trip To Africa then seems to be a film that is designed to alienate and make you feel uncomfortable in a way that the director may feel that this kind of footage (exploitative hunting videos and travelogues) should be viewed inherently.