Saturday 5 June 2010
Welcome to the Jungle (2007)
Well, I don't know about you, but I'd just about watch any film set in Fiji, PNG and West Papua. The fact that this proved to be an absolute cracker was just a bonus. Loosely inspired by the mystery surrounding the disappearance in PNG of Michael Rockefeller in 1961, this 2007 horror-thriller follows two US and two Australian backpackers through the wilds of New Guinea. In a Blair Witch project meets Deliverance style, they film their own progress as things get increasingly remote and freaky.
I won't spoil the ending, though I will note that the encounter with Indonesian guards at the West Papuan border provided a few thrills in itself. I also found the dialogue between the characters - as their own relationships deteriorate - well above average quality, and genuinely amusing. Nice to see the South-West Pacific feature in commercial film at any rate - even if it is through the 'undiscovered tribe' trope. Know any others?
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4 comments:
It is long overdue that people admitted Michael Rockefeller was trying to make friendly with the victims who were down river from the future Freeport mine. Negotiate clear passage for their future ore. How long can the US media conceal the world's richest gold & copper depsits, the world's largest mine, and the motive for the deaths of Dag Hammarskjold, John Kennedy, and Michael Rockefeller. Hundreds of billions of dollars were at stake - the colonization of West Papua and US mining from Exxon in the west to Freeport and now BP in the eastern colony of West Papua.
Wow, serendipitastic. Check out this week's Economist on West Papua:
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=16274331&source=features_box_main
BTW, Andrew, the existence of the Grasberg mine is well-known. What's less well known is the cultural genocide taking place because of Javanese (not American) colonisation.
As Lefty E and I have discussed previously, Timor Leste gets all the headlines, but nobody gives a fuck about the West Papuans.
WV = "knerv". Ed Zacchary.
Thanks for the comment Andrew, and link Fy - good one. And yes, you're pretty much right - relatively few people care about the West Papuans. (Though I would note that Timor was never the cause celebre outside Australia that it was here - Portugal excepted). You could hardly had a dodgier 'act of free choice' than the farce enacted in 1969.
Yep, ethnic dilution continues apace via Transmigrasi in "Papua Barat". Intersting wiki on the Grasberg mine here, referncing links with Kennedy, Freeport, and the Rockefellers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasberg_mine
thanks I am going to see this one now.
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