WHY ARE COLONIALIST IDEAS STILL SO PREVALENT IN FILM?

[Judi Lynn]

CEYDA YILDIRAN 30TH DECEMBER 2017

With the new season approaching, new film releases are imminent and the end of 2018 brings yet another batch laden with outdated colonialist ideas. Jungle is a film that stars British actor Daniel Radcliffe and is directed by Greg McLean. The biopic feels like a rehashing of old empire tactics. Shaped as an adventure story, Jungle is set in the heart of South America in the Bolivian Amazon rainforest. The narrative follows one man’s journey against all odds but, curiously, omits any Latin Americans. It’s a modern feature with an obvious white gaze, which doesn’t include any acknowledgment of the people originally from the region.

There is a total lack of indigenous identity, showing one white European man’s (Radcliffe) journey through the Amazon, obsessed with the notion of discovery and a “new world” fantasy. There is no perspective of the Amazonian people here. The idea that they might not want to be discovered or observed by the foreign European travellers is clearly overlooked. This disregard exemplifies an industry that still, even in 2017, produces through a traditional imperialist lens.

It is a narcissistic journey, one that centers on proving “one’s self” or capturing the essence of “one’s self” by adopting the footprints of another person’s habitat. It is always seen as something temporary. The “travellers” are in the Amazon for a short while and the safety net of a meeting point and being rescued on a boat falls short of the true experience that native people live through every day. In the film, the intentions are transparent from the beginning; the eagerness of the travellers to explore these foreign lands is seen as entertainment and a chance to help themselves better their own careers. At one point, Radcliffe states that he promises to capture photographs of indigenous tribes so that they can be published “in the National Geographic.” It feels like a kind of trophy hunt.

“This disregard exemplifies an industry that still, even in 2017, produces through a traditional imperialist lens.”

More:
http://www.gal-dem.com/colonialist-ideas-still-prevalent-film/