The opening moments of Ghostland: The View of the Ju/'Hoansi gave me great hope for the rest of it. Text on the screen at the beginning mentions that the government ruled in 1989 that the Ju/'Hoansi could not hunt on their land, putting an end to thousands of years of tradition and, presumably, severely damaging the tribe's rich culture.
The tribe now has to entertain and sell hand-made jewelry to tourists in order to survive. The filmmakers got a few shots of gawking white people pointing and laughing at the Ju/'Hoansi, and asked some of the older members about what life was like when they could hunt — and that's about all the digging that they seemed to feel was necessary.
There was no mention of why the government enacted this cruel law, and no real exploration of the lasting effects it's had on the people who are affected by it. History is inexplicably forgotten in an ill-advised and tokenistic attempt to force the audience to “see ourselves ... through the eyes of others,” as the film's VIFF page notes.
The rest of the film consisted of driving the Ju/'Hoansi tribe around Namibia to interact with different tribes, before flying a few members to Germany to clumsily film their reactions to life in Europe.
Their impressions are about what you'd expect — it's very big, kind of confusing, the people are loud, etc. Nothing of substance is learned because the filmmakers refused to ask questions of substance. Tragically, the film was more concerned with prodding the Ju/'Hoansi to react to different ways of life than highlighting their own.
Ghostland makes white European people the subjects of the documentary, and in doing so, fails those who have a story to tell.
Share this article
