I once met a man, not my husband, another man. He looked back on a life. What will you take with you into the dark? For me, I'll take the smell of a pearl shell, freshly opened, one late day on a beach."
This whispered voice-over sets the perfect mood for "In A Savage Land", a richly satisfying and haunting movie filmed in the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea.
It's a little like opening the cover of an adventure book, and tumbling down the rapids of life into a dangerous, uncertain world saturated with colour and contradictions. The story engages, the images stimulate the senses and our imagination is let loose. Set on a tentative backdrop of impending war, "In A Savage Land" is more than an adventure story. A genuine intrigue of another world and another time, it is an absorbing exploration of culture, taboos, traditions and superstitions.
In all my years in Papua New Guinea, I never made it to the Trobriands which gave me all the more reason to hunt for this rare film some years ago. I eventually tracked down a copy in the USA; however, I needn't have bothered because these days everything can be found on YouTube, including this full-length movie. Enjoy!
