The Cambridge Dictionary definition of a tourist is “someone who visits a place for pleasure and interest, usually while on vacation.” That doesn’t have to have negative connotations but it usually does because most tourists in holiday mode are totally focused on their own enjoyment. As a result, they might not fully appreciate or understand the culture they are encountering and Cannibal Tours (1988), a documentary by Dennis O’Rourke, is an excellent example of this. The film follows a chartered river cruise of the Sepik River in Papua, New Guinea in which the travelers – mostly from Germany, Australia, Italy and the U.S. – disembark at several villages along the way and interact with the local residents while visiting nearby tourist attractions. The title may be facetious – there are no cannibals on display in the film – but cannibalism was practiced in the region up to 1960 when it was outlawed by the Australian government, which was in control of Papua, New Guinea at the time.
According to reliable sources like the Smithsonian Magazine, it is believed that cannibalism is still practiced among the Korowai tribe in the isolated and heavily forested region of southeastern Papua but since the inhabitants are hostile and potentially dangerous to outsiders, the area remains largely unexplored. O’Rourke’s documentary, however, does not really delve into this topic or the country’s past history in any detail. In fact, Cannibal Tours doesn’t provide any context for a lot of what you are seeing. This is not some slickly filmed travelogue or a fact-filled, History Channel-like portrait of the region. You do see glimpses of the lush landscape, some wildlife (mostly crocodiles and green parrots) and brief scenes of the tribal people at work and play. But for most of the documentary you are immersed in a traveling tour group and observe the not-so-subtle culture clash between the tourists and their hosts while also learning through selected interviews some of the observations the visitors and tribal people share about each other. It is a fascinating portrait of how the modern world has made an impact on the indigenous people of the Sepik River region of Papua for better or worse. It is also no surprise that Cannibal Tours was of great interest to anthropologists at its premiere in 1988 at the Margaret Mead film festival in New York City.
Reputedly filmed in eighteen different villages along the Sepik River, the documentary opens with the quote, “There is nothing so strange, in a strange land, as the stranger who comes to visit it,” which sets the tone for everything that follows. Admittedly, most of the tourists come off as condescending, insensitive or completely oblivious of their cringe-inducing behavior for much of the film. One of the early scenes introduces us to a German tourist who insists on being filmed with his local guide in front of a large sacrificial rock where previous generations beheaded their enemies and ate part of their bodies in a religious tribal ritual. Smiling broadly, the German seems to take delight in this grisly reminder of the past.
Other telling scenes depict the tourists bargaining with the natives over handicrafts, necklaces and wood carvings. One female traveler remarks on how cheap the price is for a trinket while her companion urges her to offer a lower price as if the locals enjoy haggling over costs. Equally laughable is a scene of a woman trying to get a trio of villagers to smile for her camera and demonstrates what she wants, manipulating her own mouth into a smile. “Forget it,” she says as her camera subjects remain grim faced and staring at her like a creature from another planet.
Some critics of Cannibal Tours objected to scenes like this because it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Making people look foolish on film is an easy thing to do but the reality is that no one was directing the tourists to behave in a certain way. They were simply being themselves and perhaps the critics were uncomfortable because they saw something of themselves in these white, privileged outsiders.
In contrast, most of the tribal people interviewed are introspective and philosophical about their visitors. One village elder thinks most tourists are merely curious about them. “Do we still live like our ancestors? Are we civilized or not? They come to find out.” In another scene, a young man from his village tells the interviewer that his people welcome tourists and are friendly to outsiders but his face betrays uncertainty as an elderly female tourist wanders into the frame and takes his photo as if he was some kind of object.
There is one female villager, however, who is completely outspoken in her dislike of tourists. “We have nothing,” she complains. “Only you white people have money, not us backward people.” Not only does she have trouble selling the merchandise she has created for her trade but she can’t even afford to send her children to school. Yet, one wonders what her life would be like without the tourist trade. Does she have another livelihood that could financially support her family? Did tourism replace the previous ways the natives supported themselves?
The most perplexing thing to most of the Papua villagers interviewed is why do these visitors travel from so far away to come to New Guinea and why do they take so many pictures? What do these photographs mean to them? Why are they important? And why are all of these tourists white and wealthy?
Cannibal Tours concludes with a party scene on the cruise boat as the tourists, many of them with painted faces in the style of tribal people they have observed, drink, dance and cavort to the music of Mozart on the soundtrack. Without voice-over narration to explain anything or provide any background on the people being interviewed, Cannibal Tours forces the viewer to come to their own conclusions about what they are seeing.
Australian director O’Rourke, wrote a defense of the movie before he died in 2013 at age 67. “Cannibal Tours is certainly a documentary film but it is also a fiction because it is an artefact, that is: someone made it. The making of art is, after all, only artifice – playing with the undifferentiated mess of life to get a little product. But this can be both the meaning and the subject matter. In a profound sense the viewer and the subject can be one-and-the-same. We can be embarrassed to be inside and outside the frame (and the process of film making), simultaneously. This experience of self-recognition and embarrassment is the subject matter.”
Another insightful assessment of the film was expressed by Dean MacCannel in his 1976 book The Tourist. “A lesson of the film is that the New Guineanans experience their myths as myths,” he noted, “while the tourists experience their myths as symptoms and hysteria. An old man tells the story of the New Guinean reactions to the first ships carrying German colonialists: “Our dead ancestors have arrived! Our dead have come back.” and he continued with a smile, “Now when we see tourists, we say the dead have returned. That’s what we say. We don’t seriously believe they are our dead ancestors – but we say it!” One does not find among the tourists any similar lightness of sensibility…The tourists, throughout, seemed incapable of a conscious detachment from their values, which was so evident a feature of the New Guinean images and discourse….The New Guineanans do not see this difference between themselves and the Europeans. They rigorously maintain there is no difference with the single exception that the Europeans have the money and they don’t. This film is a reminder that the task of anthropology is far from done – we have yet to explain ourselves. “
Cannibal Tours would make a great double feature with Barbet Schroeder’s The Valley (Obscured by Clouds) from 1972. In that feature film, a group of jet setting hippies from Europe travel deep into a remote area of Papua, New Guinea in search of a mystical valley. In the process, the oursiders lose their way and began to experience some form of identity crisis. You could actually add an appropriate third feature to the bill – Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980) – a notorious grindhouse thriller in which a team of shockumentary filmmakers fall victim to a hostile native tribe deep in the Amazon jungle.
Dennis O’Rourke, director of Cannibal Tours, enjoyed a film career that spanned 30 years. He specialized in documentary features, starting in 1975 with Yumi Yet, a portrait of Papua, New Guinea, which was followed by Ileksen (1978), another film about the country that focused on the first elections after Papua became independent from Australian rule in 1975. Among his other works are The Sharkcallers of Kontu (1982), The Good Woman of Bangkok (1991) and Cunnamulla (2000), a portrait of a town west of Brisbane, Australia where Aboriginal and white Australians live together yet apart.
Cannibals Tours is not currently available in the U.S. for purchase in any format but you can stream a decent enough print of it on Youtube for free.
Other links of interest:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/cannibal-habits-of-the-common-tourist
http://www.cameraworklimited.com/dennis-orourke.html
Cinema Sojourns 