Basutoland and its People attempts to outline the need for continued British involvement within Basutoland, while still advocating a clear division between the local population and the colonial rulers. The film, promoted as an educational picture, begins with a series of statements presented as historical fact. The film reports that ‘tribes are ruled by their native chiefs under the protection of the imperial government’. A further title espouses the necessary function of the British and affirms the popular imperial notion that the British have brought peace to the area: ‘Incessant tribal warfare was the rule until 1884, when the Imperial Government took control. Since then peace has reigned.’ The film also emphasises the function of the British in ‘civilising’ the Africans, as an intertitle claims that ‘the country was originally inhabited by a few wandering Bushmen, primitive people of a dirty yellow colour, and only some 4 feet high .’

Although the initial titles outline and support British involvement in Basutoland, the images within the first half of the film focus largely on the local customs of the area.  The Empire series promised to show ‘peoples, homes and habits’ and the film follows the formal and narrative conventions of other ethnographic pictures in representing local customs (KW, 19 November 1925). The film literally presents the African as a subject of study, as the camera presents a local boy from front view and then in profile. It depicts unclothed Africans outside huts, local people with circular baskets on their heads carrying grain, the process of beer-making, and African women cutting the hair of their children.

There are two significant factors to address here. First, the film highlights the difference between the Africans on screen and the British viewer. After showing the local method of cutting hair, an intertitle states ‘They polish them with sand and water!’ The use of the exclamation mark highlights how alien this custom is intended to appear to the viewer, while another title remarks that ‘none of the young children are overburdened with clothing’. Clothing served as a signifier of civilisation and the somewhat flippant tone of the commentary privileges the white viewer as a knowing authority, finding humour in the ‘unsophisticated’ customs of the Africans.

Secondly, these sequences, presented as documentary facts, are very evidently staged representations of Africa. The local people smile and repeatedly look up at the camera. When the commentary – again emphasising division – states that the youngsters are ‘shy of white people’, the film cuts to an image of a group of children running into a hut as a white person approaches. The staged sequences promote traditional western images of ‘Africa’, which the commentary endorses. A further title explains that the children ‘respond to a little gentle bribery’. 

This sequence provides the only brief appearance of a white person within the film and offers their only acknowledged intervention. The final act of the film, the ‘pitso’, is seemingly organised and run without British involvement or influence, but again the influence of the white cameraman is apparent, both in watching over the Africans and in positively directing their actions on camera. Structurally, the pitso also provides a clear conclusion to the film, as the final shot depicts the local children waving goodbye to the camera.

Tom Rice (February 2008)