Exterminate All the Brutes(2021)
dir. Raoul Peck
Four hours of the colonial story, unsoftened.
Where to watch: Hulu (HBO original, 4 episodes, per Hulu series page); verify current US availabilityLetterboxd ↗
A four-part essay-series by the director of I Am Not Your Negro, following the sentence that Conrad's Kurtz wrote on his report in Heart of Darkness. Peck narrates a history of colonialism, genocide and white supremacy from Columbus to the American West to the Congo, mixing archive footage, animation and staged scenes. It is the story the textbooks soften.
Why it’s here
The series connects things the curriculum keeps apart: colonial violence, slavery, the Holocaust, and the ideas that justified each. What's punk is the refusal of the neutral tone, and the fact that it names the thread. What's pedagogical is that it can be paused, discussed and argued with. Pairs with Discourse on Colonialism, Orientalism and King Leopold's Ghost. Note: it is long, essayistic and dense, and some critics call its sweep too broad.
Where This Film Lives
- Topics
- colonialism
Read Alongside
Books that share a topic, theme, or setting with this film.
Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples
Linda Tuhiwai Smith
Research was a colonial tool. Here is the audit.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya
Caroline Elkins
Britain's Kenyan detention camps, from the archives.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
David Fromkin
The deals that drew the Middle East in a hurry.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Culture and Imperialism
Edward Said
How novels made empire feel normal.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Empire of Cotton: A Global History
Sven Beckert
The T-shirt that built capitalism.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
Mike Davis
Famine as imperial policy.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and Its Solutions
Jason Hickel
Rich countries 'aid' poor ones. Check the ledger.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition
Cedric J. Robinson
Capitalism was racial from day one.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST