Elsewhere

This four hour documentary is founded on a very intriguing concept, consisting of 12 20-minute fragments where we witnessed life in twelve very different locations on our planet earth. In these locations, we mostly watch indigenous people coping by, hunting, fishing, preparing their meals, dealing with the natural world in a way most city dwellers and inhabitants of rich countries can't imagine. If memory does not fail the twelve places featured in the movie are in Namibia, the Sahara, an Indian Village in the Canadian Pacific, Northern India, Southern China, a fishing village in Sardinia, Lappland, Greenland, Central Siberia, an aboriginal settlement in the Australian Outback, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia. Despite the extreme length of the movie, I was mesmerized by it.

For avid browsers of the National Geographic magazine, this ethnographic documentary on vanishing or primitive cultures is a feast. Four hours may seem long, but before you know it is over and some may long for more. Here is a list, I think complete, of the subjects covered:

1. Niger. A snippet of life among the Tuaregs. 2. Samiland in Finland. A reindeer herder and hunter in a winter wonderland. 3. Kaokoland in Namibia. Wives talk about polygamy. 4. Irian Jaya in Indonesia. Primitive forest dwellers tell what leads them to kill their tribal opponents and how to eat a human being. Don't expect detailed recipes. No, humans don't taste like chicken. 5. Thule in Greenland. Walrus and seal hunters voice a gripe against animal-lover Brigitte Bardot. 6. Arnhem Land in Australia. Aboriginal women comment on the European occupiers. 7. Ladakh in India. Cow and goat herders on the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains. 8. Siberia in Russia. Reindeer herder during the summer. 9. Yunnan in China. Farmers adapt to a changing China. The social cost of the communist party embracing capitalism. 10. Sardinia in Italy. A fisherman faces the depletion of fish stocks. 11. BC, Canada. The Neska nation, their traditions and the land corporations have plundered. 12. Falalap, Woleia in Micronesia. The people of a Pacific Ocean atoll face overpopulation, the threat of global warming, and trash parachuted by the Red Cross.

Great camera work, fine editing, and a nice blend of cool-headed interviews and people moving through their daily lives reveal the cultural strengths and perceptive thoughts of people afar and at the fringes of the modern world.