AllMovie

This curiously titled docudrama is a joint effort of the United Nations Museum of Man and a group of French scientists. The minimalist plot finds four French explorers heading into West Africa on a fact-finding mission. Their goal: to record the sacred rites of the Toma tribe, including the sexual mutilation of young women just before marriage. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), the tribesmen are halted in mid-ritual by a seasonal storm, forcing the explorers to return to civilization empty-handed. Though it spares us the more graphic details of the "Gri Gri" ceremony, the film does offer a couple of gory animal sacrifices and a painful tattooing session.