SOUTH ASIA – Page 3 – THE SILENT TIME MACHINE

February 13, 2018February 22, 2018

Men Who Hunted Heads, The (1972) – Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf

48 mins, colour, voice-over in English, with some post-synchronised sound.

Source : this film can be downloaded from the Digital Himalayas website here

This is a BBC television programme, jointly co-produced with the Bavarian television station, Bayarischer Rundfunk, that is extensively based on footage shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf among the Konyak and Wanchu Naga of North East India (the former head hunters of the title) as well as among the Apa Tani of the same region (who did not hunt heads). It was “presented” for television – in effect, the editing of the footage was overseen – by Anne Winder, who would later become a leading BBC producer. An archival version of the BBC television schedule for 1972, available here, indicates that it was broadcast as part of The World About Us series in January of that year.

The film is structured around Haimendorf’s return visit in 1971 to a region that he had first visited in the 1930s and he provides a framing voice-over in his aristocratic Germanic accent. The film exudes the same general ethos as the early Disappearing World films that were being broadcast by Granada Television around the same time, though Haimendorf’s archival footage marks it out as distinctive.

Notwithstanding the prioritising of the Naga in the general story-line of the film as well as the title, the Apa Tani archival material is equally interesting, particularly the footage of the traditional aerial acrobatics performed on the occasion of the Spring Festival. Some of the Naga footage had previously appeared in Wanchu Nagas (1962).

Text : Macfarlane 2010

February 13, 2018February 19, 2018

Land of the Gurkhas (1959) – Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf

Spirit medium – ‘Land of the Gurkhas’ (1959)

30 mins., b&w, voice-over in English. Production: BBC Television.

Source : this film can be viewed here

This is a television film based on footage shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf in the course of a lengthy expedition during which, accompanied by his wife, Elisabeth (‘Betty’), and a team of porters, he travelled overland from Gorkha in western Nepal, through Katmandu, right across to the eastern frontier with the Darjeeling District of India. The title is somewhat misleading in that the film includes scenes not only of the life of the Gurkhas, but also of other groups that the expedition visited along the way, including the Gurung, the Tamang, the Sherpa and the Rai. The material was “presented” – that is, ordered and edited – by the BBC producer, Brian Branston, who worked on several programmes with Haimendorf, while the voice-over, which was scripted by Haimendorf himself, was performed by the then 33-year-old David Attenborough. An archival copy of the BBC television schedules, available here, indicates that this programme was first broadcast in August 1959.

At least part of the footage on which the Sherpa sequences in the film are based is available independently on the web, under the title Among the Sherpas of Nepal, here. Probably on account of the fact that it is in colour, this footage is sometimes erroneously dated to the 1970s, but as it appears in Land of the Gurkhas, it must have shot before 1959. Interestingly, when incorporated into this film, the Sherpa footage was not only transferred to black and white stock (as colour television did not exist in the UK at that time), but was also horizontally “flipped”, so that the right hand part of the image appears on the left and vice versa. The reason why this was done is unclear, but it may have been a by-product of copying from the original colour stock to monochrome stock.

Text: Macfarlane 2010

February 12, 2018February 18, 2018

Wanchu Nagas (1962) – dir. Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf

16 mins., colour, silent

Source: viewable on-line here

An ethnographic expedition film shot by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, who studied the Naga over many years. However, it is clear that Haimendorf did not know the subjects of this film at all well: in the opening sequence, some older women hide from the camera, and there are a number of shots of villages and groups of people taken at considerable distance. In another sequence, Fürer-Haimendorf hands out small gifts to the subjects from behind the camera. The film ends with a sequence of an aeroplane dropping supplies.

Although the film has clearly been edited, beginning and ending with general shots of the mountain environment, there is no systematically developed narrative. Instead, the film offers a series of sequences, showing traditional house styles, some craft activity or simply groups of people standing in front of the camera. Towards the end of the film, the subjects perform a mock assault on an enemy, apparently in some government post, since they creep along a neatly defined stone-lined path.

However, within these limitations, this film offers some remarkable images of traditional Naga dress and architecture. There is also a very interesting sequence of a group of men striking a vast slit gong.

Texts: see Fürer-Haimendorf 1969, and also the website, The Nagas: Hill Peoples of Northeast India which may be accessed here.