B Documentary
Directed by Robert Gardner
War is inevitable.
That depressing message permeates Robert Gardner’s 1964 documentary Dead Birds, which depicts daily life amongst the Neolithic tribes of remote West Papua—people who had had minimal contact with “civilization” at the time Gardner shot this film.Their lives are a constant state of ritualized, low-intensity warfare with their neighbors. Not for conquest or plunder, according to the narration, but for vengeance, and because they like it.
Every day, men spend a good piece of their time sitting on watchtowers, ready to warn friends and family of an encroaching attack. When one occurs, it lasts until someone is seriously injured or killed. At that point, the losing side retreats to mourn, while the winning side retreats to celebrate. The victim need not be a soldier—a woman or child will do.
After mourning, the losing side must appease the victim’s ghost with revenge. And so the cycle continues.
Their cruelty extends to animals, as well. The people raise pigs, and when they slaughter them, they leave them to slowly bleed to death in the dirt.
And yet these are loving and caring people. They treat their children, spouses, and friends with concern and affection. Perhaps it’s the constant reminder that death can come at any time. Or perhaps it’s simply human nature at its best and at its worst.
Gardner presents this tapestry of life with an almost willful lack of cinematic style. The narration is direct, neutral, and informative, and read in a flat, dry voice. There’s almost no music. You come away feeling that you’ve watched a simple presentation of fact. (I do not know how factual the film actually is.)
This style (or lack thereof), while convincing, has a price. Although Dead Birds concentrates on two specific people—a man and a boy—it holds them at arms length. You see their emotions, and in case you don’t, the narrator explains what they’re feeling and thinking (sometimes annoyingly. But you never actually feel like you know the people. Despite the fascinating story, the movie feels distant and at times even a little bit dead—like an anthropological study but not a human one.
A newly-restored, 35mm print of Dead Birds will screen next Thursday, September 23, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. It’s the first of three documentaries in the series Others/Ourselves: The Cinema of Robert Gardner.
Bayflicks 