ON THE SCREEN
FROM the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution Europeans were formulating a concept of race which put them at the apex of civilisation. Expanding their influence into the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia, they (I should say we, since I come from British and German stock) discovered riches in the form of land, soil, minerals and people, which they exploited for centuries. According to this remarkable documentary series by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, at the heart of this expansion was an idea either openly expressed, or secretly held, and either consciously or subconsciously acted on, that non-europeans were on a lower level and all needed to either be brought up to the level of “whites” or exterminated. Taking its title from a quote in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, it examines racism in history, showing disturbing echoes across history and the dark paths it has led us down, up to modern times. Deeply personal, often uncomfortable, but compelling.
IN the 1960s, while feminists fought for liberation and equality, trying to reverse the centuries old power imbalance between men and women, Fernande Grudet found a way to grab some of the money earnt by men as well as wield power over influential men. Under the name Madame Claude she ran high class brothels in France. While there were plenty of other brothels running in Paris, Claude insisted on only hiring employees who could easily mix with the upper crust. This allowed her to charge much higher rates for the services she offered and, in the natural course of running her business, to gather information on some of her most powerful and wealthy clients, which gave her a certain amount of influence in business, politics and even in the underworld. This series, starring Karole Rocher as the hard-headed, no-nonsense Madame Claude, is loosely based on Grudet’s memoirs. It has some great, stylish recreations of Paris in the 1960s and examines what it was to be a women in that rapidly changing era.