The narrator focuses on the emotional qualities of the objects, and discusses the perception of these works of art, craft, and utility from a historical and contemporary European perspective.
The film argues that colonial presence has compelled African art to lose much of its idiosyncratic expression, in order to appeal to Western consumers.
Footage is seen from a Harlem Globetrotters basketball show, of the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, and a jazz drummer intercut with scenes from a confrontation between police and labour demonstrators.
The magic of cinema both imbues inanimate objects with life and carries out the mortification of living subjects," something she also connects to the footage of the dying gorilla.
[7] Because of the sensitive subject, the sharp criticism of colonialism urged the French National Center of Cinematography to censor the second half of the film until 1963.
[5] The first time the full version was publicly screened in France was in November 1968, as part of a program with thematically related short films, under the label "Cinéma d'inquiétude".