Overview: The Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people have seen their population dwindle and their culture threatened since coming into contact with non-Native Brazilians. Though promised dominion over their own rainforest territory, they have faced illegal incursions from environmentally destructive logging and mining, and, most recently, land-grabbing invasions spurred on by right-wing politicians like President Jair Bolsonaro. With deforestation escalating as a result, the stakes have become global.
What I rather appreciated about this documentary film is that it presents us with a couple of perspectives to the dilemma faced by both the indigenous Uru Eu Wau Wau tribe and of the would-be farmers ...
What I rather appreciated about this documentary film is that it presents us with a couple of perspectives to the dilemma faced by both the indigenous Uru Eu Wau Wau tribe and of the would-be farmers who are bent on deforestation in Brazil's remote Amazon rainforest. The former live on their ostensibly "protected" territory, constantly vigilant to the aspirations of the encroaching people who burn down and clear tracts of land for cattle farming. Illegal their behaviour may be, but the attitude of those loyal to the Bolsonara government in Brasilia do little to enforce the status of their reservation, and so it falls to themselves to try and police - at considerable risk to life and limb - their own land. The position of the farmers is also presented. These are people with little hope, a general resentment of the Indians whom they consider to have far too much land to live on, and who are also not remotely shy of putting in the hard graft to farm this territory for their own families. I suspect most of us will take a more favourable view on the former case, but the latter one is not without merit and Alex Pritz gives both sides ample opportunity to make their case and for us to evaluate for ourselves. It has it's fair share of incongruities. Whilst clinging, determinedly, to their traditions the native tribes-folk embrace technology in the form of bikes, digital watches and almost all are clad in football strips - this is not a documentary that depicts a backward looking society. Nor are the farmers, some of whom try to set up an association, entirely depicted as brutal land-grabbers. This has a degree of balance, offers us food for thought and a glimpse at the internecine politics that really fails to deliver for anyone in this most delicate of environmental scenarios. It is really well worth a watch. I saw it in a cinema, but I can't day that is really necessary - it'll be just as interestingly provocative on the telly.
