Meet the Natives

A group of five men from the small island of Tanna, Vanuatu, is invited to travel halfway around the World to visit an exotic island called England where they will live with three native English tribes, the Middle Class, the Working Class and the Upper Class. The ultimate goal of their adventure to this distant island kingdom is to meet the son of their god, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and consort to Queen Elizabeth II.

This is a wonderful and loving depiction of the five mens journey and their impressions of a society very different from their own. At home they live close to nature and their responses to some activities in England are spot-on, especially their comments on keeping traditions alive and on different kinds of hunting, for a living and for sport, are memorable.

I suppose this film is given an extra dimension if you are not English, they not only manage to give a warm rendering of their own society but a hilarious treat of the English as seen from a foreigners eyes, and the fact that they don't have a "Western" point of view in a way sets things in a new perspective. The production is by Channel 4 and that is noticeable, it is a British production, but the message comes through.

This documentary series throws the anthropological cliche upside down and has some tribal men visit the "exotic" society of England. Their interactions are insightful and funny. You learn a lot about both societies.