Original subtitles

WOMEN OF THE WORLD

TO BELINDA LEE, WHO, THROUGHOUT THIS LONG JOURNEY, ACCOMPANIED AND HELPED US WITH LOVE.

Rome.

A grand military parade on the Via dell'Impero.

Thousands of young men, the nation's finest

proudly line up to present this superb spectacle to officials

and to the public jamming the grandstands.

Disciplined, fearless, impassioned,

hearts swelling with noble ideals,

nothing in the world could distract them today.

Well, maybe one thing.

But just one.

Israel, August 5, 1962.

Thousands of female recruits, the nation's finest,

line up before the regiment commander, a female general.

She observes a sample of the very best on a harsh assault course.

At 2 p.m., they lay down their arms for a half-hour break,

leaving them no worse for wear, or for underwear.

At 3 p.m. sharp

arms are inspected by Sergeant Major Corinne Rosenthal.

Her completely feminine love of cleanliness means

just one grain of dust in a gun barrel could ruin her entire day.

Isn't a girl's greatest virtue

to keep a submachine gun polished and ready to fire?

Meanwhile, at a remote outpost,

the more seasoned soldiers guard the borders of the Promised Land.

It could cost them their lives at age 20, this privilege of being present

from the dawning of this immense, impassioned, eternal biblical theatre,

to the final act of the drama

lived by their restless people for the past 30 centuries.

But for the recruits, the off-duty call sounds at 5 p.m.

Here they are

the fearsome females of the Israeli army

heirs of the ancient Amazon warriors who, to guide their weapons better,

had a breast amputated.

At least that's what some foreign observer said,

one equipped with scant powers of observation.

Look for yourselves.

Does it really look as if the tough life in the field,

military discipline, familiarity with arms

has diminished any of their primitive, delicious and refreshing femininity?

Retired Colonel Rudyard Hopkins, formerly of Scotland,

is supreme commander of the army of Iwa (Papua New Guinea).

This is another female army, because Iwa is an island of women only.

The army is an obligatory stop for all physically-fit girls between 13 and 18,

whom Colonel Hopkins trains

with tireless daily - and nightly – manoeuvres,

for the purpose of feeding the new conscripts of tomorrow.

As you may have guessed, this army is made up of his 84 wives

who have provided him with 52 children.

Colonel Hopkins is proud of his soldiers and speaks constantly of their virtues.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to understand a single word

because he's as mute as a stone.

But to make up for it, he's as deaf as a doornail

though he moves his lips with the calm confidence of someone

who ran out of hearing aid batteries ages ago.

As far as we can tell, his troops are in fine shape.

Things always go smoothly, unless a recruit under inspection

is found unfit for service due to thoracic insufficiency.

Colonel Hopkins is a good Scotsman

as demonstrated by the rich variety of his clothing.

And he's a good colonel, as demonstrated by his ease

in mobilising his troops at the moment of our departure.

These are the convicts of Stius

an island without women in the Gulf of Carpentaria (N. Australia).

They've caught one of those marine monsters

which today's biologists call a dugong,

formerly known as a Siren,

the mysterious creature sung of by Homer,

half fish and half beautiful woman,

the love and death of ancient sailors.

The convicts stare in silence at her slow agony

awaiting nightfall to taste of her flesh in a ritual of love

as tragic and ancient as the world itself.

It's April 12, 1962.

On Stius, island without women

the myth of the Sirens continues.

July 14.

Paris celebrates the fall of the Bastille

elegantly recalling the historic end

of a frighteningly myopic century

the triumph of Voltairian Enlightenment and the advent of freedom.

On a day like this, people elsewhere would be kissing their flag

but the French kiss their women.

In the tragedy, misery and splendour of the history of France

we always sense the physical presence of women as the stimulating force

behind that pinch of anarchy that today urges the unwitting citizen

to kiss his woman right in the middle of a mass of policemen.

In Paris, a public kiss on July 14

transcends all romantic and physical limits

and takes on the proportions of a provocative gesture

directed at the public, or at servitude and conformity.

But it is a sterile gesture to which the public does not react,

filled as it is with its sceptical civility.

"The day I kissed my wife in public", Molière wrote,

"I felt like I was kissing the Statue of Liberty on the lips."

This is the statue of Guidarello Guidarelli,

a handsome young hero who fought and died for Cesare Borgia.

Today, in the museum of Ravenna

the irresistible Guidarello still exudes sex appeal

from every one of his marble pores.

So much so that every year, on the anniversary of his death

women line up to kiss him tenderly on the lips.

From a cultural and romantic perspective

this is a refined and tender gesture

but from the scientific point of view

it's a tendency common to all erotically under-developed countries.

Her name is Erika Sommer.

She's 40 years old, Swedish

and the only woman in the world authorized to celebrate the Mass.

Since the distant times of vestal virgins and priestesses

history gives us no other example besides hers.

She is the official priest of a Stockholm parish

where the faithful rush in great number to receive communion from her hands.

From the hands of a woman

imbued with a physical and spiritual understanding

a mystical affinity.

And what other sort of affinity induces these girls

to dance with each other at a famous Parisian nightspot?

What feeling is this

that distances them from the company of men

while impelling them to imitate men to such pathetic result

and mask their melancholy tenderness with irony?

But where these women can at least point

to a literary source for their proclivities

men have only the weight of ridicule.

For all the effort they make to deny women,

the fair sex is present among them more than ever.

Trying to deny women makes their presence more pronounced than ever

whether among hermits, celibates, eunuchs,

and especially this group.

As you can see, Europeans hold no monopoly

on the spectacle we just witnessed.

Here in Papua New Guinea, among the Ibitoe tribe,

what we euphemistically call "special friendships"

are extremely common among all the men of the village.

Doing their coiffures, putting on makeup, plucking unwanted hairs,

it's all a great effort, which, although satisfying, takes nearly the entire day.

So the heavy work of keeping the village going falls to the women

who don't need to waste time in front of the mirror

since no one even looks in their direction.

As you see, this type of weakness is common in both hemispheres

and it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't the women who pay the price.

These oppressed working women cannot even resort to a strike

for it would leave these gentlemen perfectly indifferent.

FULL NUDITY PROHIBITED

But there's another village

only 12,000 miles away, on the Côte d'Azur

where men may seem unenthusiastic before the great bounty of God.

But the women?

They'll say it's to get a great tan

and avoid the ugly double white strip

left by the bikini at the end of summer.

Which is not a sign of good prospects for the winter.

Chinese women, on the other hand, don't think that way.

Their idea of beauty is skin white as milk

and transparent as porcelain.

So they enter the water dressed in a thin suit

closed up to the neck, complete with socks, gloves and parasol.

The Chinese woman is afraid of tanning because, or so they say here,

in the sun her skin doesn't tan but turns yellow as a lemon.

So every winter - because here they go swimming in winter -

she takes every precaution to maintain in her most intimate anatomy

the fragile delicateness of fine china,

which is a sign of good prospects for the summer.

In New Guinea, the ideal of beauty for the black women of Lambu

is white skin

obtained by smearing their bodies with a special type of mud.

The custom is of recent origin

coinciding with the arrival of the first missionary nuns

the "White Sisters of Charity"

My name is Maria Angelica de Montal.

I am 22 years old

and for the last 16 months

I have been living in this cloister in New Guinea in the peace of the Lord.

We maintain the rule of silence

and the only voice heard is that of our prayers

to our Divine Bridegroom.

I am happy in my cell

which is comfortable and clean

and even has a little window high up

through which I see the sun and the sky that's always blue.

On Thursday, when I may speak with our Mother Superior

she tells me that outside there are many big yellow flowers.

I pray every day for those good people

who bring us food

so that we may live in the glory of our bridegroom, Jesus Christ.

Today in Orgosolo, a paramilitary policeman died in a clash with bandits.

He was a young man of 20, born and raised here in the village.

Perhaps the bandits set their sights on him for that very reason

since even today, in their eyes

a Sardinian on the side of the law is a traitor.

They brought his body to the cemetery on Thursday morning

but on Tuesday and Wednesday it stayed at the home of his mother.

On Wednesday evening, the "mourning women" came.

The best come up from Oriena da Fonni and Orzulei for special deaths.

At midnight their wails can be heard down to the last house in the village.

At 4 a.m., the women from Orzulei turn the job over to those from Oriena.

They have to return to their village for a job at the house of Domenico Piddu

whose wife died the evening before.

Our next stop is those shores where delight and smiles reign,

that sweetest of islands, Tahiti,

the last paradise on Earth.

Here the angels are women as delicate as butterflies aloft in the spring

among perfumed trumpet flowers

flitting about from dawn to dusk.

But luckily, even in Tahiti

the new generations are bursting with energy.

We're at the public school in Papeete, the island's capital,

during the three daily hours of dance lessons,

compared to two meagre hours

to cover French, maths, history and geography.

Tahiti is constantly dancing,

and even after school they dance away their free time

to the incessant and frenetic rhythm of the tamure.

They dance during working hours as well, because on Tahiti

dancing, aside from being instinct, diversion and passion, is also work.

In fact, by 6 a.m., in hotel gardens

the girls decorating the tables with flowers are already dancing.

Dancing prepares their bodies to perform for tourists.

Better to offer its all to the tourist industry,

this industrious island is constrained, for its very survival

to keep each one of its "natural resources" moving from dawn to dusk.

But today, Tahiti, which has passed from small-scale work to mass production,

can count on the advantages of exportation.

Here is the lovely Vaea, recently exported to Europe in films,

seen here taking lessons from her mother.

Here is the charming Lorraine,

also recently acquired by the European market.

And the beautiful Kula,

whose imminent exportation to Italy makes us hope

that this island will join our Common Market.

Also flourishing is the importation of sailors from the United States.

Every evening, this training ship from San Francisco

unloads its cargo of 300 cadets on the docks of Papeete.

From a business perspective

that represents a sure 300 spectators for the day's final tamure performance.

Leis, kisses, smiles and door-to-door pickup and delivery

are all included in the price of admission.

For a young cadet in the US Navy, the tamure isn't just a dance.

It's an education.

It's the discovery of a new world, of new emotions,

and, above all, of a new feminine fauna

he never learned about in school.

This is where they come from,

like the blossoms of this perennially flowering island.

White, yellow, red, blond, brunette

flowers planted by no one knows who,

belonging to everyone and to no one.

They are children of the dance, that benign muse

that gives them their daily bread.

And here, everyone accepts them like a blessing.

Their care is entrusted to the old women of the island.

Their mothers are dancing on the beach or at the port

where another tour boat has arrived.

The young mothers of Tahiti don't raise their own children.

They'll bring up other women's children in their turn

when they, too, are too old to dance in public

and a solitary beach will remind them of the sweet years of their youth.

Here we are at Cannes during the annual film festival.

Nowhere else is a woman so engaged

in the dramatic, pathetic, useless and unyielding battle with time.

She races toward a future already attained

or toward an unattainable past.

At 18, she feels too distant from Lolita,

and too close to the threshold of her 40s.

She's restless, like Cossinette,

not knowing whether to act like a mature man or an old woman.

So she heads toward an unknown future

leaving behind a past without regrets

which may well reflect the part of her most worth remembering.

She wants to be in film,

because film seems the quickest path to her destination,

though she doesn't yet know what that is.

She only knows that for film, you don't need to know anything in particular,

which gives her substantial courage,

and that you need to be ready to do anything,

which gives her loads of security for the future.

She believes in the myth of the overnight sensation

in dinner with the producer

and in all that is easy, pleasant and, above all, quick.

She wants to be discovered, noticed, admired, helped, launched.

All in 24 hours.

Launched, yes. But where?

She also believes in scandal.

So she shows up at the Palais des Festivals in a bikini,

certain she'll be made an actress by the next day.

And the next day, she's in bed with a cold.

In Los Angeles, Eva Barrett, 20, aspiring actress

has been waiting 18 months even to be called as an extra.

To make ends meet, she sells newspapers on Hollywood Boulevard.

Ivy Page, Gloria Still,

and sisters Rosy and Martha Crystal,

pump petrol at an all-night station.

They're paid on commission.

Four aspiring stars from Louisiana

and two ex-models from New York

have been waiting two years for their big break

while serving burgers and fries until 5 a.m. at a drive-in.

They earn an average of $2 a night,

plus 15% in tips.

The rent for their sequined uniform is five cents an hour.

Jamie Spring, 18, from Minnesota.

Eight times a night, she dons this casual evening ensemble

designed to help American women fall asleep easily,

complete with sleep mask, headphones for listening to lullabies,

and a timer.

Barbara Green, 23, from California

is in charge of erotic accessories for less peaceful nights.

Immense beds, fiery-red blankets,

and masks inscribed with sayings

that can be changed according to various contingencies, such as

Others head for the photo studios at the big magazines.

This is Milton Green,

perhaps the most famous photographer in the world

who's attempting, by anatomic selection, to assemble the ideal American woman.

A hundred women a day come to this studio,

leaving a nose, a neck, an arm, a foot,

and going home with the rest that no one wants.

That's the law of film:

chop up 100 women to create just one.

In Japan, they get straight to the point.

The model undresses completely and lets the photographers choose the best part.

The photographers are tourists, ready to pay dearly for an obscene photo.

And the Japanese, a society of nudists and thus less sensitive to obscenity,

capitalise on their weakness in good conscience.

On the streets of Tokyo, immense film and theatre posters,

which in our cities would generate huge protests and new laws,

are barely noticed by crowds of women and children.

Sex is not even a mystery at school.

On the contrary, the first three years of middle school

include two mandatory hours per week of sex education,

in which the teacher shares with the students

the secrets of physical love, gestation and birth.

Boys and girls in mixed classes learn to locate the source of life

without the doubts of adolescence or the shadow of guilt.

And they learn the most suitable and moral means

to carry out one of the most urgent academic programs of the Japanese empire:

birth control.

With these surprising results.

These are the children of 20,000 ex-US soldiers

who found their soul mates here in Japan.

They dress in European style and speak English.

One surviving tradition is to bring them to drink

from the famous Fountain of Health, where on the eve of battle

the ancient samurai came to find courage, ecstasy and strength.

But since the American samurai acquires courage and strength

from a different source, Japan tries to keep up.

This is a cocktail lesson for bartending students.

There's also a school in western manners

teaching the correct use of the fork.

And a weight-loss gym

for the logical consequences.

In the department stores of Tokyo

girls pay more and more attention

to mannequins dressed in European style.

Tastes change.

It takes just one look at the newest dolls to understand

the longings of the modern Madame Butterfly.

A bust like Jayne Mansfield,

and eyes like Gina Lollobrigida.

Transforming almond eyes into round eyes

is done by a surgeon wielding a scalpel with exactly the opposite technique

of that used by his Western colleagues,

to transform round eyes into almond eyes for European and American women.

Dr. Ashiri, a popular ophthalmologist

with a prosperous clinic in Ginza

carries out 10 to 20 operations a week

and achieves this incomparable result.

To enlarge the breasts, the surgeon uses

the most elementary laws of hydraulics.

The liquid generally used is oil of paraffin,

injected in varying amounts, from 10 to 15cc per breast

depending on the safe limits of pressure.

The results are not final

because, with time, the breasts deflate

and must be brought back to the clinic to be pumped up again.

The paraffin treatment is harmless

though it's not recommended for women who are nursing.

Nine tons of synthetic rubber,

for a total of 7,000 pieces per day.

And still this fake breast factory in Los Angeles

has only 50% of the market.

How disheartening!

The continued use of synthetic rubber

in a world desperately seeking to defend itself against adulteration.

This is just too much!

This poor father is trying to nurse his child with a coconut.

His wife wants nothing to do with it.

She's afraid of ruining her breasts

preferring to smoke and gossip with her girlfriends.

We're in a Sakai village in northern Malaysia,

where polyandry is practised,

that ancient and rather rare custom

whereby the wife lives it up

while her seven or eight husbands slave away from sunup to sundown.

But the Sakai woman still hasn't found

someone to stand in for her when it comes to childbirth.

When the time comes, she has to do that alone.

But even in this, there's little cause for joy for the poor husbands.

Gathered in the next room

they must pretend to assist the likely father

who thrashes about, complaining of atrocious labor pains.

MINORS PROHIBITED Much has been written about this street,

but up till now no one has ever managed

to smuggle a movie camera past this steel gate

to document its squalor.

We had to hide the cameraman in a laundry truck

to get live images

of the famous "window girls" of Hamburg.

And this is what the street looks like

on a Sunday afternoon

when farmers and villagers come to town

to enjoy the curious spectacle of the "window girls"

with their wives and girlfriends.

This is the view

of a student dormitory in Stockholm at 10 p.m.

This immense, modern building has more than 200 small apartments

with one of the largest and most active communities of Swedish students.

Our observation post proved perfect for a very careful study

of the controversial co-ed life

lived in open promiscuity

in these fine lodgings furnished with every modern comfort

except window shades.

Finally, and invariably at midnight,

the curtain falls on the long workday.

It's Saturday morning.

On the outskirts of Stockholm, the highways swarm with co-eds

seeking a ride to the beach, the lakes, or the mountains,

after a long week of studies.

But since all the world's a village, some are left on foot. All the better!

Even in Sweden, hitchhiking can be dangerous.

You never know how they drive.

In Italy, especially in the south,

there are no exceptions to the law of pre-marital chastity,

and once the marriage is celebrated,

it's consummated on the spot.

Otherwise

"Angelica, who, as her name says, lived like an angel on Earth

but, suspected of disgrace, became an angel in heaven."

"Pure as a saint, faithful as a warrior,

killed and wept over, all because of a mistake."

"Here lies Maria Grazia, whose loving innocence

others believed was tainted with sin."

After burying an entire generation of husbands in this pleasant cemetery

the Sporting Widows' Association

plays bowls every morning on the green fields of Little Rock,

on the outskirts of Sydney.

This widows' group is made up

of 35 women of fine Australian heritage

whose late husbands excelled at playing bowls,

considered the national pastime in Sydney.

Properly dressed in their mourning clothes,

which can be either black or white, depending upon the weather and season

these pleasant sportswomen never lose the cheerful serenity

that accompanies, in even the most painful memories,

these gentle, simple creatures

when, with these morning games,

they celebrate the daily rite of paying homage to their deceased husbands.

Meanwhile, along the endless beaches of California

young American couples also celebrate before the fiery ocean

their daily rite in homage to their love.

It is the rite of heavy petting, of motorised flirting,

hurried, restless, impetuous,

the desperate yearning for a love barely glimpsed and already vanished

swift and elusive as a sunset.

A tree restaurant. Capacity: two.

Recommended for those who wish to spend a romantic night

wrapped in the tropical forest's mysterious silence.

An irresistible attraction for American couples on their honeymoon in Honolulu.

There are hundreds of reservations,

and any couple who gets their turn

before their first child is born is lucky.

Delicious food, atmosphere, Champagne,

and as the brochure says:

"a romantic night wrapped in the tropical forest's mysterious silence."

But the brochure didn't mention this:

they climbed the tree trustingly

toward their innocent and romantic dream.

It's the first disappointment of their marriage.

They're not sceptical enough to laugh it off,

or cynical enough to dump soup on the heads of the crowd.

The first clouds have drifted over their honeymoon.

The divorce is final, the bags are packed,

and now they're leaving Las Vegas, having stayed here the five weeks

required to obtain legal residency in the state of Nevada.

The Twin Lakes Lodge is a real ranch right out of a western

run by gallant cowboys

who do their best to help their female clients forget

the real reason for their forced vacation.

The children, waiting for Mummy to get rid of Daddy, play by themselves.

Time is never wasted here.

There's always a smiling cowboy

to teach you how to put on a holster and handle a six-shooter

without increasing the bill by one penny.

Other cowboys organise rodeos

and teach the ladies how to use a lasso to rope a calf -

after having taught both the horse and the calf

how to behave in a lady's presence.

Meanwhile, the children continue to play on their own.

At sunset, an innocent ride, two by two, at the desert's edge

brings the tiring day to a close.

But for those women having trouble sleeping

there's always more to learn.

In the hotel saloon, the bartender's brother, dressed as a cowboy,

teaches them how to drink whiskey like Jessie James.

Lessons continue well past midnight,

but this time they're not included in the bill.

Get married for just $15!

Price includes minister, flowers, and parking.

How can you resist the urge to get married and have children?

Las Vegas isn't a city.

It's a light bulb that goes out at dawn.

Even the $15 chapels have disappeared.

No chance of getting married now.

At this hour in Las Vegas, you can only get divorced.

At 8 a.m., the couples line up, and the first goes in.

They're only together now out of legal considerations.

When they leave here, they'll take two different streets

forever.

Someone is crying.

Some drunken husbands beat their wives,

or just insulted the judge.

This is the Las Vegas divorce court,

its glass facade as transparent

as the mood and character,

the nature and indifference,

and pain, of those waiting their turn.

Only age-old traditions manage to keep the family together now.

Only the natural state of submission of woman to man

can save the institution of matrimony.

Observe this eloquent Japanese scene.

The women dive for pearls eight hours a day,

while the men, seated in the boat, sip tea.

The women don't breathe. The men don't complain.

But while the women tremble with cold and fatigue

the man handles the housecleaning all by himself.

In Magasho, 200 miles south of Tokyo

the scene is even more spectacular.

Hundreds of women return to shore each morning

having been out at sea since dawn

gathering seaweed from the bottom of the ocean.

Around noon, the men come to wait for them on the beach.

As is easy to note, this is only a polite gesture.

They don't lift a finger or bat an eye,

while the poor girls, half dead from exhaustion, fill the baskets.

It's a type of seaweed highly prized in Japan

belonging to a rare species of hemigosoli

used to prepare aizzai, a type of baking powder for fritters.

Market price, about 75 cents a pound.

But the women who brave sharks to gather it

get only 11 cents of that.

The rest goes to the men,

as compensation for their energetic and determined participation in the work.

Her name is Elizabeth Rudel Smith.

She's 40 years old and married with five children.

She arrives at 8 a.m. and signs the dollar bills in the Washington mint

to supplement her husband's pay.

She's the Treasurer of the United States.

This warehouse alone holds $1 billion.

Mrs. Smith carries out the morning inspection

assisted by the Director General.

The US government is a healthy patriarchal family

where the men make all decisions, large and small,

but it's the woman who holds the purse strings.

Mrs. Johnson, 42,

married, no children.

Each morning she decides how many million dollars

the Fifth Avenue bank, where she is president, can spend.

Only she can open this safe.

Only she can close it with a nod,

while the cashier has to use brute force.

Her office is on the 54th floor.

The board of directors is meeting today.

The board members are all men

but even so, they've proven their ability and reliability.

A satisfied Mrs. Johnson has promised them a year-end bonus.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe,

a different board of directors is meeting.

We're in Singapore, and the Chinese streetwalkers union

is celebrating excellent annual revenues.

The president hands out ribbons

to those employees with the highest productivity on the night shift.

The president may be a man, but his popularity is unquestionable.

His term of office will be renewed by unanimous acclamation.

The women's police corps in Hong Kong assigned to control prostitution,

begins its frantic day in the Kowloon barracks.

In the maze of alleys

where tens of thousands of Chinese live in deepest misery,

the Hong Kong policewomen are assigned to suppress

the vice offered in this city in frequent and brazen display.

Half a million Chinese live on boats in Hong Kong.

Each of these little sampans, just 14 feet long,

is home to families of six, eight, ten people,

with an average of 16 inches of space per person.

At four million residents and growing,

squeezed between the sea and the border of Communist China,

the city overflows into the bay.

Twenty thousand sampans are the only fragile salvation

for this huge human shipwreck.

A different Hong Kong floats on the still waters of the bay at night

with all its fascination and misery.

The men and children having mysteriously disappeared

the sampans are transformed into dens of prostitution.

We came here one evening on the policewomen's motorboat.

The old ladies pretended nothing was wrong and didn't move,

while the youngest girls dived into the water.

The policewomen fished out three of them.

Two were only 15,

and were crying and trembling with cold.

They had just launched their careers the night before.

At 14 Sago Lane

the policewomen discovered a house of ill repute.

They brought the madam to the station

along with eight girls between 14 and 18.

There were also these two little girls, aged 8 and 10.

They answered every question the same: "I don't know."

"What's your father's name?" "I don't know."

"And your mother?" "I don't know."

"Where do you live?"

"I don't know."

The girls make no denials.

They already display, in a sense, a certain professional dignity.

One of them said, "Can't you see I'm pretty?

What do you want a pretty 15-year-old Chinese girl to do in Hong Kong?"

Every year, as soon as the rainy season is over

Sister Luisa and Sister Maria cross the 300 miles

of the Ngorongoro Reserve by jeep.

The old jeep is held together by a miracle.

The two nuns call it "Providence."

But after three years, old Providence can still do 30 and doesn't act up.

Can you imagine being here at night with Providence broken down?

But here, on the muddy shores of Lake Magadi,

where Providence could get stuck,

the trip has to continue on foot.

The shy Masai tribe waits on the other shore,

the border of their territory, which they never leave.

The Masai bear no love for the white man,

who always chased them off the best land.

They don't trust him.

The Masai have many enemies:

poverty, ignorance, fear and disease.

They have only two friends: Sister Luisa and Sister Maria

who arrive every year to baptise and cure them,

coming from far away on the wings - or wheels - of Providence.

These ladies come from far away, too.

They're the white missionaries of style who bring the word of the gods

the fashion gods, that is, to the heart of Africa.

After centuries of colonialism, modern Western democracies

are dealing with the urgent problem of emancipating African peoples

by bringing staples to the poorest and most backward villages.

She can scream as much as she likes, but no one will come.

This is a village in Borneo, 15 days by canoe from the coast.

In Borneo, the more tattooed a woman is, the more beautiful she is.

The more she screams when young, the more success she'll have later

with the men of the tribe who only like women with defaced skin,

a condition our women would never accept.

In Europe today, the complete destruction of the skin

represents the most modern and radical plastic surgery on a woman's face.

Skin damaged by excessive makeup,

or marred by some annoying little pimple,

is no longer a reason for unhappiness.

Just go to a special clinic, and for the good of your face

have yourself flayed with an abrasive paste

that strips away the old skin and bares the living flesh.

The treatment is extremely painful and lasts up to six weeks.

After that, the enormous abrasion heals and new skin begins to form.

The result is astonishing, at least in 80% of cases.

Aside from the trifling 20% of faces rendered useless

by complications such as infections,

the treatment is clearly recommended for all women

who ought to change the skin of their faces

at least once a year, preferably in the spring.

In Africa, beauty cream for the skin is produced by the camel.

From time immemorial, Bedouin women have turned to this cure-all

to nourish faces suffering from over-exposure to the desert sun.

We can even trace it back to the Koran.

It seems that the camel, as a producer of beauty cream, is very generous.

They never run out of it in the villages.

After spreading it abundantly on their faces

the Bedouin women let it dry in the sun

to be more beautiful when their men return home.

And here are some crazy celibates,

the Maori bachelors of New Zealand.

Their national anthem against marriage goes more or less

"Hey, woman

get lost!

I'll never do it!

I won't marry you. Never!

Hey, woman

get lost!"

There's the happy fellow now!

Not only is he married like all his buddies

but, wonder of wonders,

his wife is having a baby after only five months of marriage.

They tied him up and left him alone in the middle of the sea

as soon as her labour pains began.

The hours go by, the tide comes in,

but he knows no one will come to save him

before the baby is born, and she knows it too.

In her agony to get it over with quickly, to overcome the physical pain,

she pushes desperately, causing a quick and happy delivery.

The love child is born in love.

This sea has never killed anyone.

In Switzerland, hundreds of expectant mothers come from all over the world

to these clinics that promise fast and, above all, pain-free deliveries.

The courses in modern gymnasiums bring together groups of 20-30 women

who prepare to give birth painlessly under the tutelage of an instructor

who is unmarried, but nevertheless a great expert.

Inhale... exhale.

Course tuition, travel, a minimum of two months' lodging,

and delivery in a room with bath, flowers and a TV,

costs more than $3,000 -

which is nothing, considering the advantage of being able to deliver

without so much as a peep.

"Unto the woman he said

"I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth."'

MILITARY ZONE. ABSOLUTELY NO ENTRY.

Once again they've ignored the posted warnings.

We follow them with a powerful telephoto lens

while they run to collect shrapnel between artillery blasts.

They are the women of Mareb, a remote Bedouin village

on the border between Algeria and Morocco.

They hide behind sand dunes to escape the notice

of sentinels who survey the firing range.

Their technique is to run in as soon as the guns open fire.

With the smoke and dust of the explosions

it's unlikely anyone will see them and chase them away.

They risk their lives for a few pounds of metal

which the dealer from Mekhera will buy for a few coins.

Mareb is one of the poorest villages on the border.

Ten years of war have carried off all the men.

Only a few elderly remain

and lots of children.

The prickly pears are few and rotten,

but the children know there's only grain for couscous twice a week,

when their mothers go to the target zone to await what descends from the heavens.

VAN DE PUT NOT GUILTY

Suzanne Van de Put, a young Belgian mother,

gave birth to a daughter without arms, and killed her. THE RIGHT TO KILL

The court of appeals in Liege acquitted her of infanticide.

Public opinion throughout the world seemed to welcome the verdict.

Avenue of the Lilies, in Liege.

We knocked on Suzanne Van de Put's door.

Her father opened the door, but wouldn't let us in.

We waited with a telephoto lens

to capture any moment of the everyday life of this woman,

the focus of the most extraordinary and unpredictable event of the century.

Here she is, leaving the house to join her husband, who's waiting in the garage.

It's a Sunday afternoon.

They're going to see their favorite football team at St. George.

She doesn't know we're watching her, trying to find some sign on her face,

some shadow that will reveal her true feelings.

What does her presence at the game mean, just a few days after the tragedy:

interest in her team, or a desperate attempt to forget?

In court, she said she couldn't allow a little girl without arms

to grow up to be an unhappy woman,

and that if she had the chance, she'd kill her again.

Has her maternal instinct been appeased?

Is her conscience at peace?

It was a great game.

Her team won.

Why isn't she smiling?

In Germany today, there are 7,800 little victims of thalidomide,

all born with deformed arms like Suzanne Van de Put's daughter.

But their mothers chose life.

At 71 Kieler Strasse, in Eckernförde, Germany,

Annette Kind lives with her two-year-old daughter.

Little Ilke is an extraordinarily beautiful and intelligent baby.

Aside from her little arms, she's perfectly healthy and happy,

and has a formidable appetite.

At 15 Hardenberg Strasse, in Fröndenberg,

Wilma Wittdorf spends her free hours away from work

with her 2 1/2-year-old son.

Peter, too, is a happy and healthy baby

who, without ever fussing, intelligently follows the game

with which his mama tries to train his poor little arms as best she can.

At 2 Schlesische Strasse, in Iserlohn,

Gertrude Stark lives with her little 18-month-old Magdalena.

As healthy, pretty and intelligent as almost all these little victims,

she is particularly sensitive and affectionate.

At 54 Aubstrasse, in Menden,

Karl and Linde Schulte-Hillen adore their littleJan.

His father says, "my son's arms will never develop

but his heart, intelligence and spirit will."

Who knows if one day these won't prove even greater assets for him?

She bore a son in pain,

sheltered him in a manger, raised him in misery,

accompanied him in anguish and watched him die on the cross.

To her, the mother who knows what it means to suffer

for a child tortured in the flesh,

800 mothers at Lourdes come every day to ask for aid in their misfortune.

They come from every corner of the globe

to beg for the miracle of healing for their unhappy offspring.

The long years of alternating between hope and darkest despair

have caused them to lose faith

in the science that cannot heal the flesh of their flesh,

their suffering and martyred flesh.

They've sacrificed their youth

and spent their last dollar for their children.

Almost all of them are poor,

and many have had to sell possessions,

to come here to ask Our Lady of Lourdes for help.

There is no Christian submission in their expression,

only the mute, worldly desperation of a mother

defending the life of her child with all her might,

asking of heaven what earth denies her.

There is no humility in their prayers,

just the insistence of one asking for that to which she has a right.

They are neither angels nor saints.

They're just mothers

who, in their worldly pride, ask for salvation for their children

from that purest of mothers who, seeing her son die

asked not for his salvation but said with humility

"Lord, Thy will be done."

They pray,

but in their prayers they ask nothing for themselves.

They only beg for health for their little ones.

THE END