Film and movies are important sources of evidence and knowledge, especially when considering the weight of information regarding various global cultures, challenges, issues, and events. Often, the images and videos are critical components in depicting what is known about a particular problem as well as the perceptions. As such, films can tolerate or challenge various global aspects including stereotypes and ethnocentrism. Black Harvest is one of the movies which actively demonstrates an assessment of a particular culture of a society based on preconceptions that originate from their practices and experiences.
Black Harvest is a documentary piece and a continuation of the previous Highland Trilogy Films which takes into account the exploration of the existing relationships between settlers and native communities in Papua New Guinea. The movie encompasses a half native and tribal leader Joe Leahy and the surrounding Ganiga community. In the film, Leahy and the Ganiga co-own the Kilima coffee plantation which is expected to be more profitable during the Black Harvest Period. However, significant falls in international coffee prices trigger disputes regarding lower wages hence initiating breakout of tribal warfare (O'Shea, 1994).
The central theme that the documentary attempts to uncover is the relationships between the Leahy brothers as the initial settlers and the local natives of the Highlands. As such, the film goes beyond the illustration of personal ventures of the main characters to cover the dynamics of the interactions between the European culture as well as that of the native Highlanders. Perhaps the most significant ideas that the filmmakers intended for the viewers to understand is the probable interaction between settlers and natives where the Highlands form the playground for drama and adventure, hope, greed and also the depiction of real-life occurrences manifested in the economic venture of coffee farming and interpersonal relationships between communities. In truth, Black Harvest
takes the viewer through the fascinating 50-year historical happenings of the contact and interaction between the European culture and the Highland culture.
According to O'Shea (1994), the film-makers take a neutral standpoint regarding the subject of cultural interaction by showcasing how contact between the two different cultures was characterized by both hostility and intermittent skirmishes while also experiencing intimate encounters leading to mixed-race children. As such, the association is expressed by the fil as mutually beneficial where the natives admired the technological approaches employed by the Leahy’s, and on the other hand, the Leahy’s valued the local community’s cooperation in the coffee project among other ventures. Furthermore, the film-makers lay the foundation for the establishment of real-life depiction regarding the adverse impacts that come with the destabilization of economic investments not only in the past but also in the present day-society.
Adamowicz (1993), mentions that the convergence of surrealistic and ethnographic practices is well displayed in ethnographic films. The Black Harvest exemplifies this statement by portraying a sense of convergence between surrealism and ethnocentric aspects. Notably, the film demonstrates high levels of surrealism by describing the lives of the people in the documentary in a manner that allows identification based on real names as well as the utilization of visual metaphors to illuminate the various human experiences and challenges. Coupled with the ethnocentric display of the customs, scenery, issues, and interactions, the film addresses the contemporary universal human experiences in a manner that is both intelligible and relevant in bringing out the central theme of the movie.
The significance of structure in Black Harvest cannot be overlooked as a style that not only propagates the subject matter but also communicating ideas that may not be apparent based on content analysis alone. Notably, Oshea (1994), also reveals that the film successfully employs paradoxical situations to explore the subject. As such, the narrative structure is founded on the illustration of the ecological aspects of Papua New Guinea suggesting that the Ganiga earned an income to preserve their way of life. On the other hand, the attempt to gain profits eventually eroded their way of life. The utilization of this structural style in the film significantly underscores the traditional socio-economic ecosystem where the Highlanders simplified their livelihoods by reducing diversity through dependence on a single cash crop; coffee. This depiction sufficiently elaborates the strategies adopted by diverse individuals and communities in an attempt to cope with real-life paradoxes (O'Shea, 1994)
Furthermore, Ballard (2010), explains that the film demonstrates actual activities regarding the immigration of the Europeans into Papua New Guinea’s Highlands in the year 1933. Therefore, the film’s illustration of interviews with surviving members of the passage and other eyewitnesses go a long way in providing a remarkable and culturally authentic work. A personal reaction to the film is that the documentary’s focus on capturing the interactions, events, moods, and scenery of the contact between European settlers and the Highlanders, as well as the convergence of surrealism and ethnocentrism successfully leads to the reconstruction of historical happenings to the extent of becoming comprehensible by the modern-day viewers.
Cannibal Tours
In an almost similar depiction and storyline to the Black Harvest, Cannibal Tours is also a quasi-documentary production produced in 1988. The movie heavily employs ethnographic presentations to depict the nature of modernity as well as the western model of tourism desires and native people’s exploitation. In summary, the film highlights a group of European and American tourists traveling from one settlement to another in Papua New Guinea making hard bargains for local items and taking pictures as well as giving out cigarettes and other things.
The central theme that the film attempts to cover revolves around the aspect of cannibalism both in the actual and implied sense. The element of cannibalism in the real meaning is depicted by the events following a German tourist obsessed with the old raiding and cannibalism practices in the region. As such, this tourist takes pictures of locations where headhunting was practiced and also gathering as much information as possible from the inhabitants of the place. This is one approach in which the documentary makers utilize to highlight ancient cultural practices in Papua New Guinea from the postmodern perspective. Secondly, the film also strategically employs the figurative sense of cannibalism by portraying the tourists as cannibals who consume the indigenous people through arrogance, materialism, and photography. As Burns " Lester (2005) mention, the film-makers intend the viewers to understand the true nature of tourism by depicting the locals as practical and reasonable and tourists as being guilty of primitive traits they attribute to the natives.
When tourists engage in sightseeing activities, they obtain a lot of information beyond sight-seeing alone. On the contrary, they take part in other activities. Perhaps this revelation is what drives the position of the film-makers regarding the role of tourists not as sight-seers alone but also sources of information and active participants in the depiction of cultural practices and social geographies. For instance, the practices of photography go a long way in structuring the experience that could otherwise be lost without visual theory. Also, the application of the characters of the tourists also expands the viewer's knowledge regarding authentic popular practices and experiences in the film. Simply put, the film-makers attempt to take the position that tourism, as a practice that has existed since historical times takes center stage as the key to the juxtaposition of local cultures and traditions as well as native-foreigner interaction. Furthermore, the documentary developers appear to lean more towards the illustration of tourism as symbolic cannibalism through the activities which are somewhat self-driven(Crang, 1997).
According to Burns " Zafiri (2012), the film Cannibal Tours employs a style that integrates host-guest encounters with text as data to reveal information provided by tourists from Germany and Italy. This strategy significantly expounds on the theme of tourism encounters with far-fetching implications including the provision of in-depth insight regarding tourism in the developing destinations and regions, the confirmation of the ancient practices among the natives and most of all, the demonstration of how tourist-local interactions deliver significant meaning to the viewers perceptions. Additionally, the application of visual evidence fully exploits the subject matter of the movie, for instance, the illustration of tourists adorned in native clothing and participating in the local dances sends a strong message to the audience concerning the success of the adventure.
Concerning the cultural integrity of the documentary, Huang " Lee (2010), explain that the various gazes in the tourism context play a crucial role in unraveling the complexities of the tourist-native interactions as well as validating the concepts of the film. Notably, the movie provides a substantial amount of visual evidence using the tourism setting and thus illustrating clearly the perspectives of the tourists themselves, that of the locals and most of all, the views of the audience. Although an aspect of controversy arises in between the real and implied meaning of cannibalism, the movie eventually generates a better understanding of the structure and psychology of natives and the tourists as well as their interactions hence making both interpretations of the cannibalism title acceptable by contemporary viewers.
At a personal level, the application of visual evidence in the film Cannibal Tours coupled with the development of a structure that incorporates less imagination and more practical data, nature, style, and shape of visual information. This feat is realized through the tourism context setting improves not only the authenticity of the film but also establishes a framework for which an analysis o historical events from more than a single viewpoint is established (Burns " Lester, 2005). A lot of knowledge can be acquired from the utilization various approaches in film-making, and the demonstration of specific events eventually form the baseline for the interpretation of the themes and meaning of a movie. In light of this realization, a critical climatically scene as mentioned previously encompasses the enjoinment of the tourists in the local dance. This event captures the film's narrative which, in my opinion, propagates the symbolic meaning of cannibalism where the tourists have been consumed by the very culture of the natives.
References
Adamowicz, E. (1993). Ethnology, ethnographic film and surrealism. Anthropology Today, 9(1), 21-21.
Ballard, C. (2010). Watching first contact . Journal of Pacific History, 45(1), 21-36.
Burns, P., " Lester, J. (2005). Using visual evidence: The case of cannibal tours . Tourism research methods, 49.
Burns, P., " Zafiri, K. (2012). (Re) viewing Cannibal Tours: lost in translation. International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 2(3), 243-264.
Crang, M. (1997). Picturing practices: research through the tourist gaze. Progress in human geography, 21(3), 359-373.
Huang, W., " Lee, B. (2010). The tourist gaze in travel documentaries: The case of Cannibal tours. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality " Tourism, 11(4), 239-259.
O'Shea, S. (1994). The significance of structure in Black Harvest. Visual Anthropology , 7(2), 157-161.
