Black and White in Color

1915. The half-dozen white, French inhabitants of a provincial village in a French African colony are shocked to read that they've already been at war for months. The priests and merchants are immediately inspired to gather a motley group of natives, march the few miles across the border to the German outpost, and wipe it out. The only military representative, Sergeant Bosselet (Jean Carmet) reluctantly agrees to lead the party, and when a young botanist (Jacques Spiesser), Hubert Fresnoy, objects to the preemptive strike, he's dismissed and ostracized. The Germans are actually prepared, and the Frenchmen's picnic war turns out to be a slaughter. Running back in disarray, the French cower and hope the Germans will be kind when they retaliate. But the supposedly timid botanist steps in, takes control, and organizes a defense by entreating the local tribal chief into kidnapping soldiers from other tribes to replace the natives that have been left to die on the field. Assuming a superior social position, the botanist now high-hands his compatriots, takes a native concubine and prepares for all-out war. The tone is hilariously set (in what sounds like a grim tale) when we see a group of natives transporting the lazy whites in homemade Palanquins. The natives sing one of those hearty native work-songs as they carry their 'superiors', but the subtitles translate exactly what they're singing: "The fool we carry is fat as a pig", "But our guy's feet smell like dung". The colonials are mostly obnoxious clods who would be ignored back in France. They consider the civilized, agreeable and tolerant natives to be animals, redubbing them with good French names at will. The corrupt priests teach them condescending lessons, saying that no black can be as good as a white, but can better himself by imitating the white man. Then they get a half-dozen natives killed, and wonder why no more volunteer for service. The equally crooked merchants start hoarding food as soon as they're threatened, and bully the poor sergeant into demeaning, foolish actions. They're the ones who demand that the Germans be expunged, not an hour after greeting them at their store as friends. As for the young, cleanliness-obsessed botanist, he seems like a good pacifist alternative, until he smells power. Organizing more doom for more natives (who do all the suffering in the picture), he sets up trench warfare outside the German fortress. The village is more of a microcosm of French folly, or perhaps Colonial folly in general. The Germans are more organized, and at least willing to fight with their native troops. And the English we see (a regiment of natives led by a jolly-good Indian Gurkha) are even more ruthlessly set on grabbing new territory for their Queen.