In bridging the relationship between this new type of documentary and the knowledge management within this new system of ideas, we might be able to determine the message or messages that the film aims to convey. The process begins with defining the film as a text as well as an artifact, understanding cinema as a cultural medium as well as an industry, and using textual analysis and interpretation to gain an understanding of the film’s values and dynamics of power and control.
To begin, we will look at the images that confirm notions and stereotypes rather than portray 'reality.' For example, the opening statement reads, "Contains Indigenous nudity and some disturbing images."
Many people have strong views on nudity, and such a warning invokes standards of modesty, decency, and morality. The introductory words are followed with the images of indigenous children running unclothed through the woods and playing in a pond.
Being depicted without clothing not only invokes moral standards, it also serves as a marker of class and level of civilization. In this case, the Zuruwaha’s – the indigenous people in the film -- nudity makes them appear both as an uncivilized, animalistic people as well as of lower social class, since clothing in our society is a powerful status symbol. The negative connotations of nudity can also include destitution, deficiency in resources, poverty, lack of skill, and inadequacy. In addition, the native is artificially contrived as defenseless, vulnerable, small, exposed, and easily overpowered.
Framing children and animals side-by-side with the Zuruwaha only strengthens the ideas already introduced of indigenous peoples being simple-minded, savage, child-like, and uncivil, and the indigenous children’s lack of distinctive characteristics, such as clothing and the showing of anatomical parts, allows them to be seen as a universal symbol and projection of all indigenous peoples.
This is where the story begins, or so we are led to believe. By the time the actual events are introduced, the viewer has already made up their mind as to whose side they are on: whoever is not the Zuruwaha. What also helps the viewer make the decision are the words, "A True Story," used at the beginning of the film. Viewers tend to believe in the veracity of a film with such a subtitle, but the "truth" this film tells is hugely distorted. First, the filmmaker was never able to verify the accounts behind the “true story” of the film (Hakani 1).
Second, the struggle between the filmmaker’s organization, Youth With a Mission (YWAM), and the government was never addressed in the film. This non-profit conservative Christian missionary organization has been on Zuruwaha land without authorization and has removed children from the tribe without proper approval, actions which may have contributed to the rise in the tribal suicide rate (Vaz 36). Third, the filmmaker’s considers himself a person of ‘good faith because he positions himself in a place where he does not have to explain any of his actions. The positioning of the filmmaker as a God figure,
looking down from above, makes it unnecessary for the filmmaker to disclose any information about himself, his organization, or the actors that participated in the film. Lastly, the indigenous peoples are never questioned or portrayed as articulate except when speaking on behalf of the film’s cause.If we look at the dominant ideology in our society, we find themes in Hakani that are apparent in Charles Hegel's The Philosophy of History. Whether by design or by chance, the filmmaker has carbon-copied Hegel’s famous lectures, offering us representations that parallel stereotypes we have read and heard before. There is the idea that indigenous peoples are immoral and contemptuous. Hegel describes Africans in the same way Hakani depicts indigenous peoples. "The Negro," he states, "as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality ... if we could rightly comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this type of character. The copious circumstantial accounts of Missionaries completely confirm this" (Hegel 150). Like Hakani, indigenous representation is being set up by missionaries (Cunningham is a missionary, the son of missionaries, and works for his father’s organization which happens to promote missionaries around the world).
Hegel goes on to represent the indigenous person as “indulg[ing] … that perfect contempt for humanity, which in its bearing on Justice and Morality is the fundamental characteristic of the race…undervaluing of humanity among them reaches an incredible degree of intensity…cannibalism is looked upon as quite customary and proper.” (Hegel 153)
Hegel also tells the story of how a woman killed her child: "She is said to have pounded her own son in a mortar, to have besmeared herself with the blood, and to have had the blood of pounded children constantly at hand" (Hegel 97).
At the beginning of the film there is the pounding of Urucum seeds in the mortar. The image is placed alongside with the images of children. Urucum, red in color, is smeared on the bodies and resembles blood: a powerful and destructive connotation which signifies bloodshed, aggression, war, and hate.
Throughout the course of the film, darkness is a recurring theme. It introduces the idea of a place of darkness populated with wild animals. In the dark during night time, our minds wander and play games. We get confused and scared, so, chaos becomes a constant threat. A darkened horizon is shown various times, and the entire film was made with very poor lighting; this was not a documentary or an ethnographic film, the filmmaker reconstructed the site on a farm in a neighboring state, which suggests the lighting was designed to be dark (at the end of the film the same location is lit quite well).
"Light admits … the signification of the Spiritual; it is the form of the Good and True -- the substantiality of knowledge and volition as well as of all natural things. Light puts man in a position to be able to exercise choice and he can only choose when he has emerged from that which had absorbed him" (Hegel 178).
Additionally, Hegel’s description meets Cunningham’s images at the point where "all sorts of gesticulations, dances, uproar, and shoutings, [were seen] and in the midst of the confusion commence their incantations" (Hegel 151). This was clearly replicated in the film -- images of shoutings, gesticulations, dances, uproar, and confusion are present within the first 8 minutes of the film and mis-represent indigenous peoples as lacking in what Hegel called ‘consciousness.’
Step by step, Cunningham builds Hegel’s theory visually, portraying indigenous peoples to match Hegel’s statements: “these people continue long at rest, but suddenly their passions ferment, and then they are quite beside themselves” (Hegel 98). Meaning they are lazy and quick to anger and their lives are ruled by petty thoughts and practices. In the film, a storm comes in and destroys the “maloka” -- the tribal hut. It falls apart and enrages the tribal leader who points to two differently-abled children states, "their parents should kill them before it is too late."
Cunningham continues the framing by introducing Hegel’s notions of immorality. "Brahmins are especially immoral. According to English reports, they do nothing but eat and sleep” (Hegel 226). In the film, people are seen eating with their hands and not doing anything productive. Lastly, Cunningham moves the camera onto the fire and the dog. Hegel states, “he entirely falls back into involvement in existence, and is degraded under physical symbols. He is represented with a dog's head ... and besides this mask, a particular natural object is bound up with the conception of this divinity... He is thus as limited in respect of what he embodies as sensuous in the positive existence ascribed to him” (Hegel 286).
Negative characterizations and ideological exploitation of indigenous peoples are disseminated in Hakani through a succession of edited visual images that take us toward a representation of indigenous peoples as mysterious, threatening, primitive, and dangerous to themselves and others.
Hegel, a precursor of the mid-nineteenth century tendency to construct philosophies of history organized around the concept of race, used anthropology, linguistics, and history to formulate his theory in which race virtually explained everything in the human experience. Like Hegel's arguments, Cunningham's explanations regarding indigenous peoples are based on the assumption that simply by stating the people are indigenous, everyone will know that mean they have the aforementioned qualities -- it thereby bypasses any curiosity about all of indigenous human experiences. Both Hegel and Cunningham make value judgments concerning indigenous cultures and practices. Cunningham, whether directly or indirectly, was undoubtedly influenced by Hegel.
