Review of Secrets of the Tribe (2010) by Kristina M — 07 Jun 2010

BRILLIANT. Only 4stars because it was roughly made, and sometimes dragged a little bit with talking heads, but this flips anthropology/ethnography on its head as the tribe at study here is not the Yanomami, but the study of culture itself, ethics, and science.

This film just keeps unraveling. If you thought there were some issues and concerns about the ethics of science and anthropology, you will be shocked. At each turn, you don't think it could get any worse, and somehow it does.

Confusing, relentless, and ultimately there is no safe territory at all in this film. You are left with nowhere to hide, perhaps no ethics at all even, no morals. Perhaps the man left with the only shard of ethics by the end is still arguably a pedophile who marries a grossly underaged Yanomami girl.

This is a glimpse, a big homocidal, perverted, child-molesting, genocidal, atomic energy agency funded glimpse at a very very nasty side of science and cultural studies.