Summary
The Territory was a very well-documented reflection of the very real events that are taking place among the indigenous people and the deforestation of the rainforest. I think recording the day-to-day life of the indigenous people was essential to the storyline of the documentary because it showed the "realness" of these people. I think a lot of times it can be difficult for people to imagine the very normal lives of people who live in the rainforest, and they often don't realize that indigenous people are just people who live their lives in yes, an unorthodox way, yet, still live a very normal. I did enjoy seeing some of the old practices such as arrow-making and shooting, this to me was very authentic and traditional. I also enjoyed the emphasis on people living among wild life as opposed to the other way around. I noticed how the videographer focused on certain animals and enhanced them almost as if they were trying to tell us that these animals are of values of the indigenous people also that these animals are important to our world, no matter how small they may appear. The part that I found interesting was the very different views of the indigenous people v.s the deforesters. Both people I think truly believed that their reasons for wanting to preserve the forest or deforest it. It wasn't a situation where the people who were doing all the destruction understood that what they were doing was wrong, but more of a one-sided motive. They understood their side and what benefits they would be gaining from doing these things and I think that motive overshadowed both their understanding and compassion for the indigenous people and desensitized them towards the underlining issue. I also found it interesting how in one part of the document, the indigenous people where blaiming the events on white people but i couldn't help but notice that some of the people burning the forest were people that resembled the indigenous people. which made me raise the question of who was their informer and how did they come to this conclusion? After the film i had many questions like this such as, what protection was being placed to protect the reservations of the indigenous people? why isn't the multiple murders of indigenous people being taken more seriously? what laws are implimented to protect the rainforest from being deforest entirely? what happened to the thousands of indigenous people?-why are their only 200 remaining? Why is it important to the new elected goverment to make sure there are no indigenous reserves? i do also wonder if their were any trees that could cure diseses that were burned down. Many unanswered questions made me hopeful for a follow up document. This film itself made me very curious about the indigenoius people and other aspects of their lifestyle.