♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL PECK: This is Aby Osceola.
She is from the Seminole Nation.
Her story goes deep into the history of this continent.
She reminds me of my mother.
But despite the resemblance, they each come,
although through not totally unrelated events,
from different strands of history.
(GUNSHOT)
RAOUL: Aby's role is played by Caisa,
a Swedish actress
of both Colombian and Native American ancestry.
(HORSE NEIGHS)
RAOUL: It is said
that the Seminole Nation never signed any treaty
with the United States government.
That's why they are called "the invincible tribe."
But for now, it is about another story.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
(OCEAN RUMBLING)
RAOUL: In that larger story, there are three words
that summarize the whole history of humanity:
civilization, colonization, extermination.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: These words run forcibly through Western world history,
the same way they drill to the core of U.S. history.
-(ARROWS WHISTLE) -(BISON GROWLS)
RAOUL: And it's not so much about winners and losers,
or between conqueror or conquered,
nor between colonist and colonized.
The forces involved here are less visible than gunfire,
class property, or political crusades.
But they are no less powerful.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
RAOUL: Entire civilizations in the Western Hemisphere
were wantonly destroyed, setting the Western world
on a path of greed and destruction.
For history is the fruit of power,
and power is crucial to the story,
which then always becomes, at best,
a story about those who won.
And clearly, this needs to be challenged...
(SINGING) ♪ Some guys care a lot for me ♪
♪ But my excitement They can't fan ♪
♪ Because I still await My primitive mate ♪
♪ We've had a date Since the world began ♪
♪ My prehistoric man... ♪
RAOUL: ...for it is about who we are today.
About what we have become as a people.
And on what side of history we are.
What side of the truth.
(SINGING) ♪ Simple and free In the long ago... ♪
RAOUL: A certain view of history contends
that the historical narrative is just one fiction
among others.
It is not.
There is no such thing as alternative facts.
(SINGING) ♪ They didn't have bebop ♪
♪ Tom-toms, tom-toms ♪
♪ They sat all day Just a-beatin' on tom-toms ♪
♪ I really love tom-toms ♪
♪ (DRUMS BEATING) ♪
(MIMIC CHANTING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
(EXAGGERATED GROAN)
(CHANTING CONTINUES)
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ ("PREHISTORIC MAN" CONTINUES PLAYING) ♪
(SCREECHES)
(SAILOR YELPS)
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
(INSECTS CHIRPING)
(BIRDS TWITTERING)
This is the day we fight.
-(CHILD CRYING) -(HORSE NEIGHS)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Chieftain Yah-Ho-Cuchee,
we must leave.
We are the ones who arrived latest here.
Kwame-Micco,
we are family now.
-You stay. -Yes.
But family is not meant to bring harm.
They bring harm to our nation.
Not you.
It's better we surrender.
So you and your people can have time to run and hide.
This is our land.
The white man wants our land.
We will fight.
Together.
Or we will die together.
And it will be a great honor.
Hink-lah-mas-tchay.
All is well, then.
(HORSE SNORTS, BLOWS)
(HORSE SNORTS)
(HORSE NEIGHS)
(COUGHS)
(HORSE NEIGHS)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
I do not want to spill Seminole blood,
kill Seminole children,
Seminole women.
Give us back the American property you stole
from our good fellowmen planters and settlers,
and I'll let you move to the Indian Territory
the U.S. government has provided for your people.
You call human beings your property?
They're slaves.
You steal land.
You steal life.
You steal humans.
What kind of species are you?
-This kind. -(GUNSHOT)
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(HORSES NEIGHING) -(GUNFIRE)
(HORSE NEIGHING)
(GUNFIRE CONTINUES)
(HOOVES GALLOPING)
(CANNON BOOMS)
(GUNFIRE FADES)
♪ (PLAYFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(LAUGHTER)
RAOUL: "All Jews and Negroes ought really to be exterminated.
We shall be victorious.
The other races will disappear and die out,"
said the White Aryan Resistance in 1991, in Sweden.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: 2016, 25 years later,
a well-known Swedish department store
wanted something new for its Christmas catalog.
♪ (CHOIR SINGING HYMN) ♪
RAOUL: The store wanted to pay tribute
to what Sweden is today: a largely multicultural society.
♪ (SINGING HYMN) ♪
RAOUL: To wear St. Lucia's white gown,
a popular 18th century tradition,
it chose a nine-year-old dark-skinned boy.
The innocent boy had a shy smile on his lips.
It was the smile, more than anything else,
that was not taken well.
In Sweden, one of the most tolerant countries in Europe,
like everywhere else in the world,
hate is on the rise again.
-(KEYBOARD CLACKING) -(NOTIFICATION DINGS)
(NOTIFICATION WHISTLES)
-(NOTIFICATION BEEPS) -(KEYBOARD CLACKING)
(INDISTINCT CLAMORING)
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DONALD TRUMP: We have people coming into the country,
or trying to come in, we're stopping a lot of them.
These aren't people,
these are animals.
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
This is not immigration, this is invasion.
You need to be afraid,
because they are coming for you.
STEVE KING: We have to do something to increase our birth rate,
or the vacuum that's created will be filled by people
that don't believe in our values here in Western civilization,
and we're seeing it happen in the Netherlands
and all across Europe, and that's a lot about...
The white establishment is now the minority.
(IN PORTUGUESE)
(IN ENGLISH) We wanted to do a good impression.
SDU MEMBER: It's respectful.
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(GUNSHOTS)
-(CAR ENGINE REVVING) -(CROWD SCREAMING)
ALL: (CHANTING) You will not replace us!
(CHANTING FADES)
(BIRD CALLING)
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
BARACK OBAMA: In reaffirming the greatness of our nation,
we understand that greatness is never a given.
It must be earned.
It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation
to limit ourselves to small dreams.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Much time has passed
since Jefferson arrived for his inauguration.
The years and changes accumulate.
But the themes of this day he would know:
our nation's grand story of courage
and its simple dream of dignity.
TRUMP: We are one nation, and their pain is our pain.
Theirs dreams are our dreams,
and their success will be our success.
Though we march to the music of our time,
our mission is timeless.
TRUMP: Together,
we will make America strong again.
We will make America wealthy again.
We will make America proud again.
We will make America safe again.
And, yes, together,
we will make America great again.
-(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) -Thank you. God bless you. And God bless America.
Thank you.
God bless America.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE FADE)
(THUNDER RUMBLING)
OBAMA: We sometimes make mistakes.
We have not been perfect.
But if you look at, uh, the track record, as you say,
America was not born as a colonial power.
♪ (MUSIC STOPS) ♪
RAOUL: Well, actually, it was.
America was born as a colonial power.
And this fact is a difficult one to admit,
for it bears the fatal capacity to disrupt the core story
we have been told all these years
and the very foundation of this country.
It's not an easy story to tell.
Because the story still continues today.
A story of the search for purity and for a godly kingdom.
A story of survival and violence.
A search for origin, 400 years after the voyage
that is said to have made the nation.
♪ (JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: 1962, Brooklyn, New York.
This is me in the middle. The author.
I'm not sure how I ended up here,
although I might have my suspicions.
This is British explorer Henry Morton Stanley
on the Congo river.
This is me with Henry.
My parents are working there
for the newly independent Republic of Congo,
like a few hundred other Haitian nationals
hired by the UN to replace the Belgians
who had fled their former colony.
-(FILM REEL WHIRRING) -♪ (PIANO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: New York, 1964.
My brother Hébert and me
on our way to public school P.S. 138 in Brooklyn,
between Nostrand and Rogers.
First time in the snow.
My mother and my cousin came down for the picture
before going to their factory jobs
in the Garment District.
On our way to Congo again,
after General Mobutu's 1965 coup.
Despite his crimes,
Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga
would remain a welcome guest everywhere
for the next 30 years.
It helps when you are one of the richest men in the world
and you control an extravagant assortment of copper, uranium,
cobalt, diamonds, and gold.
We traveled a lot, because of another dictator.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: But it doesn't feel like an exile.
I am with family.
I am an immigrant from a "shithole country,"
like he said.
♪ (QUIET PIANO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(ELECTRICITY HUMS) -(KEYBOARD CLACKING)
RAOUL: There is this one short, simple sentence
that sums up the history of the Western world
and the European continent.
(KEYBOARD CLACKING)
At the turn of the 20th century,
a Polish writer named Joseph Conrad,
who often thought in French but wrote in English,
succeeded in putting it into words
in his novel entitled Heart of Darkness.
This sentence, spoken by Kurtz,
the main character of Conrad's book,
will be the last on the civilizing task
of the white man among the savages of Africa.
And this sentence says nothing about Europe
as the original home of humanism,
democracy, and welfare.
It says nothing about anything to be rightly proud of.
It simply tells the truth we prefer to forget.
-(PLANE ENGINES REVVING) -(BOMBS WHISTLING)
(EXPLOSION BOOMS)
♪ ("WAR REQUIEM OP 66" BY BENJAMIN BRITTEN PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
RAOUL: The English word, "exterminate,"
from the Latin "extermino,"
means "drive over the border to death, banish for life."
The object of the action is seldom a single individual,
but usually whole groups, such as quitch grass,
rats,
or people.
The term "brutes," of course,
reduces the object to its mere animal status.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(BIRDS CALLING)
Africans have been called beasts
ever since their very first contact with Europeans,
who described them as "rude and beastly."
(JUNGLE ANIMALS SCREECHING)
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: It is in the 17th century
that Thomas Hobbes said to a friend,
"Some men are of so cruel a nature
as to take a delight in killing men
more than you should to kill a bird."
This is Sven Lindqvist,
a man I now call a friend.
He wrote the book entitled Exterminate All the Brutes.
This is also his story.
Sven told me...
in an Algerian town in the desert, named Salah,
the Scottish explorer Alexander Gordon Laing
was attacked and robbed.
He had five saber cuts on the crown of his head
and three on the left temple.
The one on his left cheekbone fractured his jawbone
and slit his ear.
A dreadful gash in his neck scratched his windpipe,
and so on.
Laing was attacked in January 1825.
But fear is timeless.
"A man may destroy everything within himself,"
wrote Conrad.
"Love and hate and belief, and even doubt.
But as long as he clings to life,
-he cannot destroy fear." -(MONKEY SCREECHES)
(GUNSHOT)
RAOUL: Fear always remains.
Perhaps in fear we seek an increased perception of life,
a more compelling form of existence.
I am frightened, therefore I exist.
The more frightened I am, the more I exist?
♪ ("I'M HAPPY WHEN I CATCH A CARIBOU" BY JOHN PIASTUTETE PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: There was a land named Tsenacommacah,
which means "densely inhabited land."
It was a powerful confederacy of more than 30 nations
led by Wahunsonacock,
better known as the father of Pocahontas.
On May 14th, 1607,
a hundred and four English men and boys
landed on Tsenacommacah,
on the bank of the Powhatan River,
and decided to establish a settlement.
But soon enough, it was very clear
that they lacked a supply line
and proved unable or unwilling to grow crops
or hunt for their own sustenance.
Military leader John Smith
threatened to kill all the women and children
if the Powhatans would not feed and clothe the settlers,
as well as provide them with land and labor.
The leader of the Powhatan Confederacy,
Wahunsonacock, entreated the invaders.
"Why should you take by force
that from us which you can have by love?
Why should you destroy us who have provided you with food?
What can you get by war?
What is the cause of your jealousy?
You see us unarmed
and willing to supply your wants,
if you will come in a friendly manner,
and not with swords and guns, as to invade an enemy."
Smith's threat was carried out.
After all, he worked for the Virginia Company of London,
a for-profit enterprise.
War against the Powhatans started in August 1609,
and their elimination was the order of the day.
(GUNSHOT)
(DISTANT SHOUTING)
-(HORSE NEIGHS) -(GUNSHOT)
(GUNSHOT)
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(GUNSHOTS CONTINUE)
(RAVEN CAWS)
(GRUNTS)
(COUGHS)
(GUNSHOT)
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
(GUNSHOTS CONTINUE)
(SHOUTING CONTINUES)
(RAVEN CAWING)
(GUNSHOT)
(GRUNTS)
(COUGHS)
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
RAOUL: Sven tells me,
"You already know enough.
So do I.
It is not knowledge we lack.
What is missing
is the courage to understand what we know
and to draw conclusions."
For we know now when the story started.
We know now when race, color, and blood
became institutionalized for the first time.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
We saw it taking form with the Crusades
when the Christian kingdoms of Northern Spain,
together with the church leadership
and other European monarchies,
decided to take over Muslim-controlled trade routes
to the Far East.
♪ ("SYMPHONY NO.3" BY GUSTAV MAHLER PLAYING) ♪
♪ (SINGING IN GERMAN) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
RAOUL: The ultimate goal of the church
and the European rulers
was never just about winning souls to Christianity.
It was also about gaining wealth and power
through annihilation.
(BELLS TOLLING)
RAOUL: In 1478, the pope approved
the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition,
which had to investigate the cleanliness of blood
of Moorish and Jewish converts.
Clean blood was Christian European.
Unclean blood was savage, non-Christian.
This is the origin
of the ideology of white supremacy.
For the first time in the world,
the concept of race based on blood
was used as law.
(BIRDS SINGING)
White supremacy made it possible for Europeans
to think it was acceptable
to enslave or exterminate other peoples.
That led to the mass deportation of Jews from Spain in 1492,
and Muslims in the following decades.
It happened with the forced deportation
of more than ten million Africans
from the human motherland.
It happened to Native peoples
in what came to be called the United States of America.
And again, in the 20th century, without any contrition,
it happened during the Holocaust.
(TRAIN CHUGGING, WHISTLING)
RAOUL: The road to Auschwitz was paved
in the earliest days of Christendom.
And this road also leads
straight to the heart of America.
♪ (DRUMS BEATING) ♪
♪ (FANFARE) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES DISTANTLY) ♪
(CROWD CHEERING)
(CHEERING CONTINUES)
(IN GERMAN)
(GUNSHOTS)
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(GUNSHOT)
RAOUL: (IN ENGLISH) The Germans have been made
the sole scapegoats for ideas of extermination
that are actually a common European heritage.
There was a discussion in Germany in the '70s
over the question,
"Is the Nazi extermination of the Jews unique or not?"
All historical events are unique
and not copies of each other.
But they can be compared.
There are similarities and differences
between the extermination of the Jews
and other mass murders.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
I have seen these images before.
They are always the same.
Everywhere, in ancient and modern times.
The ridicule of their display.
It is their banality that gets me every time.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
(SPEAKING GERMAN)
(CROWD CHEERS)
(BIRDS SINGING)
RAOUL: (IN ENGLISH) No one points out
that during Hitler's childhood,
a major element in the European view of mankind
was the conviction that inferior races
were by nature condemned to extinction.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
The truly charitable attitude of the superior races
consisted in helping them on their way.
(THUNDER RUMBLES)
All German historians participating in this debate
seemed to look in the same direction.
None looks to the West.
But Hitler did.
He had found his models.
♪ ("DREAMLAND" BY BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS PLAYING) ♪
(SINGING) ♪ There's a land That I have heard about ♪
♪ So far across the sea ♪
♪ There's a land That I have heard about ♪
♪ So far across the sea ♪
♪ To have you all My dreamland ♪
♪ Would be like heaven to me ♪
♪ To have you all My dreamland... ♪
RAOUL: Of course, one man alone did not singlehandedly engineer
the killing of more than six million Jews.
Hundreds of thousands of enablers
were also there to plan, execute,
or to simply profit from it.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: Renowned industrialist Henry Ford gave the Nazi party
all the profit from cars sold in Germany.
And every year, an additional 350,000 dollars
was allocated for Hitler's birthday.
Heil!
RAOUL: While millions of others committed themselves
to remaining silent.
(CROWD CLAMORING)
FRITZ JULIUS KUHN:
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
FRITZ: Wait, wait.
(CROWD CHATTERING IN GERMAN)
(WOMEN LAUGHING)
RAOUL: (IN ENGLISH) The essence of this story is fragile.
It requires renunciation of all prejudices.
Modesty and humility are needed here.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: Why do I bring myself into this story?
Where do I fit in it?
As a filmmaker,
I am compelled to stay hidden in the background.
Restrained, moderate, balanced,
judicious, neutral even.
You learn to avoid becoming the subject of your film.
It's not about you.
Unless the story is bigger than you.
-(WIND WHISTLING) -(METAL CREAKING)
In that case, you go for broke.
Neutrality is not an option.
And those who seek history with an upbeat ending,
redemption, or reconciliation, may search in vain.
Such a conclusion cannot be expected.
In the late 15th century,
Europeans started to colonize the New World.
(WOOD CREAKING)
RAOUL: Crossing the Atlantic, Columbus, an Italian,
landed on an Island that he claimed for Spain.
In 1497, John Cabot, also an Italian,
claimed another territory for the king of England.
In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral, a Portuguese,
serving his own king, reached Brazil.
Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed through a piece of land
to find the Pacific. He claimed it for Spain.
Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese,
also did the same for Spain
and died on his way around the world.
The Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano
followed the coastline of North America
for the king of France,
and got a bridge named after him in New York.
(SEAGULLS SQUAWKING)
RAOUL: In 1534, Jacques Cartier
claimed another piece for France and named it "Canada."
A few years before, Amerigo Vespucci,
an Italian sailing for Portugal, had proved Columbus wrong again,
in that he had not reached the West Indies,
but what he would then call "the New World."
As a result, a German cartographer,
Martin Waldseemüller,
gave the name America to the whole continent.
(HORSE NEIGHING)
From the beginning,
the extension of the United States
from sea to shining sea
was the intention and design of the country's founders.
Free land was the magnet
that attracted European settlers.
This particular form of colonialism
is called settler colonialism.
But as a system, it requires violence.
It requires the elimination of the Natives
and their replacement by European settlers.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(RUMBLING)
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
RAOUL: The charge of genocide,
when applied to the United States,
has been unacceptable for a very long time.
But the evidence leaves no other choice today.
From the first settlements
to the founding of the United States,
and continuing into the 21st century,
the elimination of the Native is consciously,
or unconsciously, wired into the process.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: This is a story,
not a contribution to historical research.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
RAOUL: The nature of this historical process
is still blurred by the notion
that violence was committed equally
by the colonized and the colonizer.
♪ ("AMERICAN DREAM" BY J.S. ONDARA PLAYING) ♪
(SINGING) ♪ It was just An American dream ♪
♪ It was just An American dream ♪
♪ Hey ♪
♪ It was just An American dream ♪
♪ Hey ♪
♪ Hey... ♪
RAOUL: But people do not hand over their land,
their resources, their children,
and their futures, without a fight.
And that fight is always met with violence.
(SINGING) ♪ Well, the gold And the silver... ♪
RAOUL: In U.S. history, everything is about the land.
Who oversaw and cultivated it, who fished its waters,
maintained its wildlife,
who invaded and stole it.
It's about how the land became a commodity,
"real estate," broken into pieces
to be bought and sold on the market.
♪ It was just An American dream ♪
♪ Hey ♪
♪ It was just... ♪
RAOUL: It is about how African bodies
became properties and source of labor,
and how poor white settlers embraced white supremacy
as a substitute for land and slaves.
The poet William Carlos Williams wrote,
"The land! Don't you feel it?
Doesn't it make you want to go out
and lift dead Indians tenderly from their graves
to steal from them some authenticity,
as if it must be clinging even to their corpses."
Without the unpaid forced labor of enslaved Africans,
a farmer growing cash crops could not compete on the market.
Once in the hands of settlers,
the land itself was no longer sacred or collective,
as it had been for the Indigenous people.
It became private property.
A commodity to be acquired and sold,
every man a possible king, or at least wealthy.
Most of the founders were also real estate men.
George Washington made his fortune
off land speculation.
Indian land.
And then, "the land" came to mean the country,
the flag, the military,
as in "the land of the free" from the national anthem.
Those who died fighting in foreign wars
were said to have sacrificed their lives
to protect "this land"
that the old settlers have spilled blood to acquire.
But the blood spilled was Indigenous blood.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: This is Sven again.
He reminds me of these old-time adventurers
who explore the human species,
whatever difficulties and danger it involves,
whatever faraway travels it requires.
Definitely not a white savior.
On the contrary, he is one of these few Europeans
who dare see the beast for what it is.
Sven is a witness.
Sven traveled the world.
Sven told me stories,
some of which I already knew.
He told me about this world, about his world,
without cynicism,
which would not be inconceivable at this stage of the story.
For Sven saw my world,
lived in it,
as I lived in his.
And he wrote about it, making it palpable.
And when he delved into the horror,
I knew what he meant and what he went through.
I could trust him.
Our distinctive skin colors never were an obstacle.
And that is the way it should be.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
♪ ("TWO ON A BIKE" BY GORDON JENKINS PLAYING) ♪
(BICYCLE BELL RINGS)
(SINGING) ♪ Merrily, merrily We roll along ♪
♪ Lovers on bicycle wheels ♪
♪ Merrily, merrily We roll along ♪
♪ Who needs automobiles... ♪
RAOUL: In 1887,
the Scottish surgeon J.B. Dunlop
hit upon the idea of equipping his young son's bicycle
with an inflatable rubber tube.
The bicycle tire was patented in 1888.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Four years earlier, the Europeans
and the United States had decided
that it was necessary to regulate
the thriving exploitation of the African continent
other than by whoever got there first,
was the boldest, or the most murderous.
A situation that was naturally detrimental
to any respectable business environment.
They convened the Congo Conference
to arbitrate the looting.
The main outcome, of this "gentlemen's agreement"
was the definitive elimination
of most existing forms of African autonomy
and self-governance.
At the conference,
Belgium's king, Leopold II,
managed to secure the whole Congo
as his private property.
A territory 80 times bigger than Belgium.
Basically, twice the surface area
of Texas and California combined.
During the years that followed,
demand for rubber exploded.
This would carry incalculable consequences
for the villages in Congo.
The king instituted a monopoly on rubber and ivory
and ordered all natives to supply labor
and products without payment.
Those who refused had their villages burned down,
their children murdered, and their hands cut off.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
(TRAM BELL RINGING)
Such methods led to a dramatic increase in profitability,
profits which helped in building, among other things,
impressive monuments
that still decorate Brussels today.
(BIRDS SINGING)
RAOUL: Monuments paid for with amputated hands.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
♪ (CONGREGATION SINGING) ♪
♪ Kyrie ♪
-♪ Kyrie eleison ♪ -♪ Kyrie ♪
♪ Kyrie ♪
-♪ Kyrie ♪ -♪ Kyrie eleison ♪
♪ Kyrie ♪
-♪ Kyrie ♪ -♪ Kyrie eleison ♪
"I bring you clarity,"
said the prophet,
"that you may understand
the world around you."
God tells us
that real life is after death.
The more we suffer, the more you are granted
with joys in Heaven.
Can't this wait until the end of my service?
Rubber doesn't wait!
(GRUNTS)
(PANTING)
Where's my rubber?
That's all I got today.
And why is that?
The trees have dried out.
You.
Get the basket.
(COUGHS)
(FLIES BUZZING)
No, stay, stay.
Please, please don't do that. Please, please don't do that.
(SOBS)
(GUNSHOT)
(GRUNTS, COUGHS)
(THUNDER RUMBLING)
(GRUNTS)
(BIRDS CALLING)
RAOUL: The Congo adventure was pure looting,
Leopold II running the numbers.
Plundering bodies, plundering resources.
The draining of a whole continent.
A multi-billion-dollar heist.
(TRAIN WHISTLES)
RAOUL: Ten years after the creation of the Congo state,
the writer Joseph Conrad sent his first short story,
"An Outpost of Progress," to Cosmopolis magazine.
He, too, had gone up the Congo River
on one of the company's steamers.
He, too, had seen the trading post
and listened to the passengers' stories.
The story is simple.
Two Europeans, Kayerts and Carlier,
are sent to a trading post
on the banks of the great Congo River.
♪ (FLUTE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Apart from collecting ivory from the locals,
they don't have much to do
and have plenty of time to get bored.
Their only reading material is a yellowed newspaper
that praises colonial expansion as sacred work
in the service of civilization.
At first, the two companions believe these fine words.
But gradually, they discover that such words
are nothing but "sounds,"
sounds that lack content outside the society
that created them.
Concepts such as "virtue," "crime," or "morality"
are nothing but sounds.
Soon, Kayerts and Carlier feel that no one is watching them.
One day, they argue.
(GROANING)
(GUNSHOT)
RAOUL: Kayerts shoots Carlier in self-defense
and does not realize until later
that in his panic, he has killed an unarmed man.
As he sits by the body of his companion,
Kayerts, for the first time, really thinks.
Like the rest of mankind,
he has gone around believing a lot of nonsense.
Left alone with their own weaknesses,
far from any public opinion, from any exterior gaze,
any human being is likely to indulge in the worst.
(ENGINE RUMBLING)
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: Conrad and Wells knew about each other
when the latter wrote The Time Machine in 1895.
Hatred and fear seize the time traveler.
He longs to kill Morlocks.
He wants to go straight into the darkness,
"to kill the brutes."
The time traveler falls asleep
as he sits there in the darkness,
and when he wakes, the Morlocks are onto him,
soft and repugnant.
He shakes the "human rats " off him...
-(SCREECHES) -...and starts striking out.
He enjoys the feeling of a swishing iron pipe
smashing into juicy flesh and crushing bones.
This killing in Wells is both horrific and voluptuous.
Wells's next book, which we know Conrad also read,
was called The Island of Dr. Moreau.
(CREATURE SCREECHING)
RAOUL: Dr. Moreau uses his surgical skill
to create a kind of human being out of animals.
The first of them all to shed tears.
(SOBS)
She is human!
I'm not beaten!
(LAUGHS)
-Get everything ready. -For what?
This time, I'll burn out all the animal in her!
(SCREAMING) No!
DR. MOREAU: I'll make her completely human!
No, no! No!
RAOUL: Dr. Moreau has created
one hundred and twenty creatures,
but he has not succeeded in creating a real human being.
The Island of Dr. Moreau is the story of colonialism.
Just as the colonizer civilizes the lower,
more animal races with the whip,
Dr. Moreau civilizes the animals with torture,
maximizing the pain in order to hasten evolution.
-♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪ -(LION GROWLING)
RAOUL: Just as the colonizer tries to create
a new kind of creature, the civilized savage,
Dr. Moreau tries to create the humanized animal.
Do you know what it means to feel like God?
RAOUL: In both cases, the means is terror.
♪ ("RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES" BY RICHARD WAGNER PLAYING) ♪
RAOUL: Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now
is based on Heart of Darkness.
In it and in all the real wars,
the men representing civilization
out in the colonies were "invisible,"
not only in the sense
that their guns killed at a distance,
but also in that no one at home really knew
what they were doing.
(BOMB EXPLODES)
(GUNFIRE)
(EXPLOSION BOOMS)
(GUNFIRE CONTINUES)
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
-(BIRDS CALLING) -(MONKEYS CHATTER)
RAOUL: White by birth.
A default setting.
I know this story is painful,
but we need to know it.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
The happiness of one
cannot be built on the pain of all others.
There is almost always a price to be paid
further down the line.
White by birth,
a simple pigmentation variation
transformed into a source of power.
A mark of superiority,
an authorization for abuse,
a justification for eternal immunity.
No modesty is necessary.
Nor is doubt a requirement.
(TARZAN YELLS)
RAOUL: The ultimate privilege.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪