KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT A MODERN CANNIBAL TALE A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2001 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
"I don't want to seem rude, but how do people taste?" a polite high school girl on a museum outing asks Tobias Schneebaum, a 76-year-old artist turned anthropologist whose claim to fame is that he once tasted human flesh. He doesn't remember, which is symptomatic of the problem of the documentary KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT: A MODERN CANNIBAL TALE, an intriguing but frustrating look back at a man's life. Told with interviews conducted on locations where Tobais once traveled and with archival footage -- he was a big hit on the television show circuit in 1969 -- the movie tantalizes but rarely satisfies.
A man who convincingly claims to have found inner peace, Tobias proves to be a rather bland interviewee. Once the shock factor of his having once eaten another human is over, the movie doesn't have much more to offer. We learn how the big incident came about. He was in Peru and heard about one tribe killing and eating another so he felt he had to find the cannibals. He walked for 8 days, following the instructions he was given of keeping the river on his right. He doesn't seem remorseful about his subsequent participation in another raid and subsequent feast, although he feigns some regret in one interview. Moreover, he claims that cannibals were more compassionate than so-called civilized societies -- a curious view that is challenged on one talk show.
Besides cannibalism, the movie also dwells on Tobias's homosexuality and on the homosexuality of the tribes that he lived with. What we have is a story about an honest man who is happy to share his thoughts with us, but who has remarkably little insightful to say about his one, brief episode of cannibalism. The film makers, David and Laurie Shapiro, miss golden opportunities to pursue what it means when someone takes an active part in something they set out to examine. How would we feel if a reporter took part in a bank robbery or a mugging in order to better understand the criminal mind? We would certainly, at least, want to ask the reporter some very probing questions.
KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT: A MODERN CANNIBAL TALE runs rather long at 1:35. It is rated R for depiction of mature thematic material and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
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