Initiation
in Kandangan village,
Middle Sepik region,
Papua New Guinea
(6
minutes, 21 megabytes)
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"In Kandangan village the people became co-producers with us in making a film. |
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The initial proposal came from us, but the actual filming of an initiation ceremony became largely their production. ... |
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... The initiates were barely conscious at the end of their ordeal, |
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but they grinned happily when shown Polaroid shots of their scarified backs. |
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The elders asked to have the sound track played back to them. ... |
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... Now the ceremony, and by an extension the entire society, could be put on a screen before them, detached from them. |
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They
could watch themselves. No one who ever comes to know himself with the
detachment of an observer is ever the same again."
- Edmund Carpenter Love
Thy Label as Thyself
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