AUDIOVISUAL REVIEWS

Films EDITOR’S NOTE: All f i l m listed are in 16mm, color, with optical sound, and in English, unless otherwise specified.

Nlai, The Story of a IKung Woman. 1980. Produced and filmed by John Marshall, directed by John Marshall and Adrienne Linden. Anthropological consultant, Patricia Draper. 58 minutes. Rental $65, purchase $675, from Documentary Educational Resources.

Robert Gordon University of Vermont

This film, originally shown on Public Televi- sion’s Odyssey Series, is more than simply the poignant story of a IKung woman. It deals in a powerful manner with the destruction of “natural economy.” While the film portrays the biography of Nlai from early childhood to mid- dle age, at the same time she and her band are not seen in isolation, rather the film shows how Nlai’s band is transformed from being a relatively autonomous group of foragers to be- ing confined as (semi-) dependent squatters on a reservation which is officially known, in the parlance of the South African Government, as “Bushmanland,” and how this colonial penetra- tion has affected Nlai’s life.

Nlai tells her story herself and excellent editing ensures that the flow between her narra- tion and flashback footage of her shot during Marshall’s previous Viaits makes for a cohesion which holds even the most disinterested lay per- son’s attention.

While the first part of the film deals with “traditional life,” the second part shows how they have changed (or perhaps extended?) their foraging activities to include petty commodity production for tourists and casual wage labor. The major impetus for this appears to have been that the San are now restricted to a reserve, an area vastly amaller than their previous domain. Since their original territory can hardly be termed prime ranchland suitable for encroaching White settlers, an obvious ques- tion arises: Is this simply the product of the logic of Apartheid or are there other factors involved? I would propom two factors for consideration. (1) The rather unholy alliance between the

Afrikaans-language churches, and the South African Government. These churches are late arrivals in the Namibian missionization field, and since other established churches had already staked out their spheres of influence, the only convertible people left were the San, and since it is difficult to proselytize among a highly mobile people, they had to be senden- tarized. (2) More important, to restrict the San is to use the claasic device for establishing con- trol over them. Marshall shows how this process is facilitated through the use of trade goods; and he starkly portrays his horror of some of the consequences of this penetration - increasing conflict and violence, excessive liquor consump- tion, tuberculosis, etc., to mention but a few. Of all the Sanologists, Marshall has always im- pressed me with his warm humanism. This comes to the fore when he presents the San point of view and shows how they have reacted to these alien forms. They are not passive reci- pients of the white man’s Gift (and please remember that gift is derived from poison) but actively select only certain aspects. reject some. reinterpret others, and engage in subtle and not so subtle actd of sabotage against the impinging forms in order to retain their self-respect. They have a shrewd appreciation of the broader issues involved, as reflected most articulately by one man’s statement that he is friends with both the South African Army and SWAPO, the major protagonists in the struggle for Namibia, Africa’s last colony. Clearly, they are adaptable and still very much their own people, and while no fawning paternalism is called for, the in- formed viewer is left with a doubt: Is this not a form of false comciousness as the IKung are drawn on the road to self-destruction and genocide?

Marshall wan finally allowed to return to Namibia in 1978 after being denied a visa for 20 yearn. Namibia h one of the moot inacceclsible countrica for anthropologirm, unleu one is from an Afrikaans-language university or has impec- cable conservative German credentials. So why wan he allowed to return and make this wanng

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indictment of colonialiom? Probably a number of factors coalesced to make thin possible: the belief of the South African regime that they had “nothing to hide” with regard to the San; recent political developments in Namibia stap- managed by the South African regime were a h probably important. The fact that ideologically the San, who are now defined as being a “scien- tific” commodity, are believed by the regime to be truly a “harmless people” who pose no threat to them (even if outside “agitators” were active amongst them), is, 1 suggest, crucial, and givca the film its special poignancy. This belief b grounded in the romantic fallacy concerning the San, and romanticization of the San in good for busincss. The commercial movie which Mar- shall shows being shot has apparently broken all box-office recod in South Africa and b m n to be released in the United Statea. Ironically, thin film, entitled The Go& are Angry, deab with a similar theme as the film under review. Its plot concern the disharmonious conaequencea when a “wild Bushman” picb up a Coke bottle which has been thrown out of a pming airplane, and how they eventually managed to destroy the of- fending bottle and return to their original un- contaminated state. The producer t reported to have found the San to be “natural actors.“ Romanticization of the San has an important comquence: It emphasizes that “they” are dif- ferent. h such it provider an important under- pinning for the Apartheid ideology and can a h facilitate the proccss of ethnocide. The power of Nlai as a film lies preckly in that it deroman- ticizea the San: It show that they are human like us and thus we can empathize and suffer with them the indignity and degradation of im- p ~ & rule. Some critia might feel that Mar- shall t overreacting to conditiom he found after hin long abwnce. My own limited experience ouggeots othemire, especially when it b recalled that access to other group by foreignen is st i l l curtailed. Ht study of the colonizers, their s t e r e o t p , and actions b accurate and hard- hitting. There are subtleties involved here in the white manipulation of symbols, like the Bush- man Affairs Commissioner sitting behind hin outsized d a k with hin neatly d d wife ambting him; hin large curio collection; the whites sitting together an a group at the back of the church during the wMce; the young game warden’s concern at the San killing off the giraffe but leaving maaid that some of the big- gest poachen are commonly believed to be the Army and white politicians who use modem weaponry including the occasional helicopter.

Last, but not least, the memorable shot of the San army recruits driving off to fight the white man’s war, ostensibly as equals with their new- found white comrades, but wearing cast-off old white school cadet caps1 Anyone who has ex- perienced the Namibian situation will ap- preciate these symbolic nuances.

Lmitationa of rpace preclude a fuller discus- sion of thin important film; suffice to say that as a resource for couma dealing with culture change, colonization, Africa, race relatiom, wx roles, contlict, stratification and political economy, it should prove invaluable. Purirts might raise a number of c r i t i c h about thin film-the nature of the editing, the possibly staged shots, and various other important ethical issues. These are matten for debate. Nhiwith its thought-provoking message belongs squarely to the genre of committed film and is bound to become a clpssic of the ethnographic filmmaken art.

The Divided Trail. 1979. Produced and directed by Jerry Aromon. Photographed by Baird Blyant et al. 33 minutea. Rental $42.50. purchase $425 on film ($315 video), from Phoenix Films.

Dwight B. Heath Brown University

It is refreshing to have a film that realistically portrap mme of the dominant problems of con- temporary American Indiana without being mawlrishly sentimental, overly romantic, or too shrilly polemical. This film is a h unusual in combining mme anthropological values with ef- fective UEC of the medium and mme modem In- dian music that effectively complements the ac- tion.

Focusing on three Chippewa individuals dur- ing the volatile decade of the 1970s is an unusual but effective way of portraying the development of ethnic consciousness, political activism, and dramatically changing problems and opportunitieo. Brief and plausible remi- niscences by Michael Chosa and his sister Betty Chosa Jack show the dramatic contrast between life in the Wisconsin lake country (where Indian land has been bought up by white vacationers) and in the Chicago s l w where they found few of the opportunities that had been touted by of- ficials who encouraged “relocation.” The cvic-