Over the next two weeks, we’re delighted to spotlight Jean Rouch’s provocative and insightful, though little seen, Petit à petit. Made as a loose sequel to his first fictional film, 1967’s Jaguar, this film sees the father of cinéma vérité stage a reverse ethnography, following two businessmen from Niger who travel to Paris in order to learn more about French life and multinational corporatism.

Upon learning that their rivals intend to build a multistory building in Niger’s capital, the board members of the import-export company Petit à petit dispatch one of their trusted representatives, Zika, to Paris to speak with an architect. When he overstays his trip, they send fellow company member Lam to bring him back. Out in Paris, the duo come into contact with the gloomy weather and strange customs of France, eventually growing disillusioned and jetting back to Niger with a couple of French stragglers in tow.

“When you make a film with Damouré, Lam and Tallou, it’s a permanent challenge. We invent situations leading nowhere, we create unsolvable enigmas. So we enter the unknown and the camera is obliged to follow us and improvise, for better or for worse.” JEAN ROUCH

As in most of Rouch’s films, the plot and dialogue of Petit à petit are largely improvised, owing to his close collaborative relationship with actors and technical assistants. This variable quality imbues his films with their liveliness and, in this case, adds to the game of shapeshifting cultural identities that plays out in the film. Rather than approaching issues of cultural difference through prescriptive means, Rouch’s improvisational method allows these conflicts to reveal themselves organically, often to comedic effect.

Jean Rouch (1917 – 2004) was a groundbreaking filmmaker and anthropologist. Documentaries like Moi, un noir, Chronique d’un été (Paris 1960), and La Pyramide humane defined the cinéma vérité tradition. His work in Africa remains influential for the continent’s cinema, particularly his support of directors like Safi Faye, who got her start as an actress on Petit à Petit.

Text written by Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer. Special thanks to Icarus Films and Les Films de la Pléiade.