Funeral at Bongo: The Death of Old Anai (1979)
This documentary, which won the prestigious FIPRESCI award at the Venice Film Festival in 1979, follows the funeral rituals for a Dongo tribesman who died in Bandiagara in the mid-1970s. His death was especially significant, and the funeral correspondingly elaborate (taking many years to prepare), because he was born in 1849, and was well over 120 years old at the time of his death. Anthropologist Jean Rouch was especially notable for his anthropologically-informed African film features and for the many decades he spent training and encouraging African filmmakers. He was able to go into places that few had heard of, and even fewer were allowed to enter, in order to make memorable documentaries.
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Reviews
Good start, but then it gets ruined
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.