Exterminate all the Brutes, Streaming 2021

The bones of slaves thrown overboard …

Raoul Peck, an independent filmmaker, scripted and directed this four part series for Home Box Office, each episode running 59 minutes. The series is still available on HBO, Sky Go, Now TV  and Apple TV. Peck has made a number of films that deal with the history of the colonialism, neo-colonialism and the underlying racism of both European and North American imperialist states. His most well known title is I Am Not Your Negro (2016), a study of the African-American writer James Baldwin . Peck has worked in North America, Europe and Africa and he brings a sensibility to the oppressive relationships exercised by such advanced capitalist states on the oppressed peoples and nations.

Episode 1 – Disturbing Confidence of Ignorance

This part introduces some of the key concepts. including colonialism, racism and white supremacy. It opens with the massacre of the Seminole Indians by the US military in the 1830s. There follow other examples of colonial violence in North America and in the Congo under Belgium rule.

Episode 2 – Who the F*** is Columbus?

This part opens with the arrival of Europeans in the ‘New World’. It explores the development of European scientific racism: the centrality of the slave trade: and it addresses some of the myths that underline these values including that of ‘The Alamo’.

Episode 3 Killing at a Distance …

This part studies the technologies that enabled the genocidal policies of states in Europe and North America. A prime example is the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. There are also examples of European extermination policies including in the Africa and under the Third Reich.

Episode 4 – The Bright Colors of Fascism,

This part brings the arguments to a conclusion and relates how historical processes like slavery and the extermination of Native Americas related to colonialism. And it notes the influence of extermination polices in North America on European fascism.

The series is a complex set of documentaries that present a range of source materials, both visual and aural. The complexity is likely increased as the original rough cut was about 15 hours, which has been edited down, [very effectively] to just on four hours. The complex range of materials is bound together by a narration voiced by Peck himself. This falls into what Bill Nichols has defined as the ‘expository mode’, [in ‘Introduction to Documentary’, 2001]. Thus the whole series, and the mass of evidential sources, work as argument exposing and criticising the racism that is part and parcel of the culture in the advanced capitalist states in Europe and North America.

The argument does note the relationship between the development of capitalism and the growth of racism and colonialism followed by contempary imperialism. However the series does not really address the analysis of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels which demonstrates how the culture of these societies flows from the mode of production. And the series does not really address the important writings of Franz Fanon on colonialism and the response of the oppressed peoples.

This seems to stem in part from the underlying basis of the argument in the series. Peck credits three writers and contributors to the series; and he frequently quotes from their writings. The first, who provides the title for the series is Sven Lindqvist, his book  is ‘Exterminate All the Brutes: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide’ (1992). Lindqvist himself borrowed the title from a line in Joseph Conrad’s novella, ‘Heart of Darkness’ (1899). The second is Michel-Rolph Trouillot, a Haitian academic, whose book is  ‘Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History’ (1995). And the third is Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a Native-American historian, writer, and activist, known for her 2014 book ‘An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States’. I have only read the books by Lindqvist and Trouillot but neither of them really address either Marx and Engels or Fanon.

This is a limitation of the series but it is still a remarkable televisual critique. It was shot on several high quality digital cameras including the Arri Alexa. I assume that the 16:9 ratio is the master format. The Series Cinematography is by Kolja Brandt and Stéphane Fontaine: Series Film Editing by  Alexandra Strauss: The Series Sound was by a large team led by Emeline Aldeguer, sound editor – Séverin Favriau, sound designer – and Daniel Iribarren, dialogue editor: with the music, original and arranged, by Alexei Aigui. These were part of a larger crew of craft people including art and design: costumes: stunts: special effects: animation: visual effects:  and work on casting, locations and continuity. The cast include both professional performers and non-professional performers; the latter presenting people speaking from, and at times re-enacting, their own experience.

The series is till available on several television and streaming channels; readers would need to check their access to these. The series is an important compelling addition to film and video addressing the major contradiction of our times; between the imperialist states and the oppressed peoples and nations. I found it difficult to think of an equivalent visual source that offers both the breadth and depth of this series.

Notes:

The earlier film, Concerning Violence (2014), is an important study of the ideas of Franz Fanon: there is a longer discussion of the series, including its documentary form, in ‘The Media Education Journal’, issue 72.