CE MAGNIFIQUE GȂTEAU! or, translated into English, THIS MAGNIFICENT CAKE! analyses the impact of colonialism on Africa, and the impact of Africa on the coloniser. Set in the 19th century, Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels’ experimental film is strikingly unique, both in its woollen aesthetic and fragmented narrative. The film’s title cleverly nods to King Leopold II of Belgium’s zealous desire to have a ‘slice of this magnificent African cake’, in his violent claim of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The film is split into five chapters, and tells the wretched tale of five key characters: an aging and sleep deprived king; a Pygmy working in a French colonial hotel; an overweight German with drinking problem; a porter and a young army deserter. Sharing its style with Swaef and Roel’s earlier festival hit OH…WILLY – which THIS MAGNIFICENT CAKE! will be screened alongside in the Glasgow Film Festival – this film is no less captivating in its exploration of narrative and theme than its predecessor.

The fabric of the film – quite literally in this case – is what makes it so unique. The use of the small-eyed and big-faced puppets with stop-motion animation makes for a hypnotic watch. In this film, texture cannot be disconnected with narrative. Swaef and Roel intertwine the two: material is the plot of the film. The colonial woollen characters are constantly searching for material goods, whether that be through grand colonial houses, rich African lands or even African bodies kept as slaves.

While Africa causes the violent coloniser to turn mad or bad – demonstrated in Van Molle’s chapter, where he falls in love with a snail – the coloniser is depicted as destroying Africa. This is best demonstrated in the middle-age pygmy who is employed in the hotel as a human ashtray holder, on whom the foreigners stub out their cigarettes. Visually, this character’s death is also emblematic of the crushing weight of colonialism, dying under the weight of a falling grand piano.

Texture creates the atmosphere of this film. The relentless heat of Africa can be felt during the film: visually through the fuzz of wool escaping from the character’s head, and audibly in the relentless buzz of crickets and other animals which soundtrack the film. This external heat, which the non-Africans struggle to handle, is juxtaposed with cool, dark and empty house of the coloniser, built with slaves. Van Molle’s house is fitted with hostile fixtures, like a skull-lined fence and a coat hook built from the fingers of slaves.

Colonialism connects each of the five chapters of the film. Non-Africans are positioned as obsessed with material acquisition and unable to handle the “heat” of Africa. The natives are damaged, physically, mentally, culturally and spiritually by the coloniser, and THIS MAGNIFICENT CAKE! allows detailed exploration into the fabric of the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed.

THIS MAGNIFICENT CAKE! screens again at Glasgow Film Festival on February 27th.