Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale

I first heard of this documentary from an ethics professor in undergrad in 2005, although she mistakenly said that the subject was a man from Germany. Anyway, I've finally gotten around to seeing "Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale". Basically, it's about how the protagonist, having only known the structured world of the US, ventured to these isolated villages in Peru and Papua New Guinea and found that he identified with them more than with life in the US.

The documentary won't be for everyone. In addition to the shocking title, some of the practices in the villages will be shocking for us in the west. But if you can keep an open mind, then this documentary will be one of the most refreshing and edifying works that you've ever seen. It's enough to make you want to visit the villages (but make sure to let the people there live their original way of life).

I saw this film at Amsterdam's International Documentary Film Festival and was privileged to meet both the directors and Tobias Schneebaum, all of whom are lively and outspoken New Yorkers. The film's title in Amsterdam was Keep the River on Your Right, making the sensational aspect of cannibalism somewhat less prominent. Equally important was the loving - and gay - relationship Tobias Schneebaum had with members of the groups he studied as an anthropologist. His reunion at nearly 80 years of age and inevitable leave-taking were very moving. I can only highly recommend this film to anyone looking for a moving story that is anything but pedestrian.

Schneebaum is a very charismatic man and to me the adventurous young anthropologist who headed into the jungles of Peru and Papua, New Guinea had much more huevos than most. And reducing him to the gay, feminine, non aggressive catagory,as being the only way he could be accepted into the tribe is just pure horse sh**. It only brings about the pure ignorance of what most people think 'gay' is...If Schneebaum wanted to prove that to be left to their natural inklings a tribe would run the gambit of sexual desires and he participated in the homosexual rite's does not mean that homosexuality was not there... and the most the other anthropologist's could come up with was; "he didn't keep a therapeutic distance" from the people he was studying.

It was in the Amazon Valley that something happened to Tobias, was it the raid on the other village and the killing of that tribe, or was it the eating of human flesh, had he almost gone over the brink. He was a painter until that experience and after, he never painted again. As far as the cannibal part, and why he did it, who knows as Tobias cannot come up with a logical answer, and as far as judging him for doing it, one must face his own demons in a situation that brought him to the brink. Had he gone to far,did the jungle cast him out?

It is a strange movie, but, although the subject matter is off the scale, it was entertaining. And one must give Tobias a nod for having the fortitude to go back and face his demons, and stare them down. I'm sure most people would not think that a "gay" thing to do. 8/10

After receiving both the original book and passes to the film I was pleased to see the ever lasting effect a year with natives in Peru can have on a person. It is one thing to be actually in that moment and appreciate what a life changing event is taking place, but it is another to actually continue to live with the effects that it can have on you for decades to come. Perhaps it is a curse to actually become another person with a totally different identy only to return to a world that could never understand your actions and motives while in the moment, but I beleve that Tobias understood the life-long effect that it would have on him, both positive and negative.

Tobias came across, in the book as well as the film, as a man who was longing for something that he didn't quite know what. And until his return 45 years after leaving the tribe I didn't sense any closure on his part for the "family" that he left behind. The "civilized" world's inability to comprehend his actions while there only added to this sense of an unfinished chapter in the original book. The film alone is a beautiful story about a man coming to terms with himself and his enviroment, but with Tobias' book it is a complete journey into one man's quest to find himself. Read the book first to fully appreciate a stunning film.

I read Schneebaum's book (same title as this film) when it was first published and was deeply moved by his ability to see through the many ways of "otherness" (his own and the people of the Amazon with whom he lived and loved) to a way of living a decent life. His subsequent books were not as powerful, but showed his continuing quest. His description of his sexual relations with the men of the tribe was way ahead of its time in the early 60's, but his honesty and openness about it were welcome. This movie beautifully conveys both the quirkiness and generosity of the man, but also provides a glimpse into the inevitable destruction of innocence (which is not a morally positive term, in this case) that occurs when "civilized" men intrude on traditional societies. Even so, Schneebaum himself has moved into a kind of higher innocence that suggests the possibility of saving humanity from its own destructiveness.