Choosing to Narrate

In Les Maitres Fous Jean Rouch's narration is non-stop and it seems as if the viewer is told what is happening at each instance. I initially understood what I perceived to be heavy handed narration as a flaw in the film, and wondered whether or not the viewer would have been better off without it. However, when I then consider the alternate extreme, a film with no narration and simply the images of the Hauka ceremony I am equally, if not more cautious. Rouch relays that when he first saw the possession ritual it was something he was unable to comprehend (45). If I had viewed the film and been given no direction, I too would have been unable to interpret what I was seeing, and may have jumped to an ill-advised conclusion. Muller states that a good ethnographic film needs to be supported by good anthropological work (47), and this was what Rouch's narration was doing. In creating an ethnographic work Rouch was given two options, to tell the viewer how he interpreted the ritual based on his anthropological understanding, or to leave the viewer to their own devices. His first choice while potentially problematic appears to me the lesser evil.