Movie Review/Ed Rampell

Documenting Colonial Violence in Real Time

A gripping account of a Brazilian Indigenous group’s efforts to fight back settlers invading their land in the Amazon rainforest.

In “The Territory,” land defenders of the Indigenous Jupaú community use spears, bows, video cameras and cellphones to protect their way of life from intruders on their Amazon land. At stake is a reserve of more than 7,000 square miles that the Brazilian government set aside for Indigenous people, including the Jupaú, in 1991. In this sovereign territory, outsiders are violating the law by developing the rainforest with logging, mining, farming, rubber harvesting and cattle ranching, activities that have intensified under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro.

Alex Pritz’s award-winning directorial debut documents a modern story of colonization, deep in the southern Amazon. As the government fails to enforce the laws protecting them and their land, the Jupaú arm themselves and stand their ground, forming the Jupaú Surveillance Team to patrol their land. (Jupaú is the self-denomination of a people associated with a small group of Indigenous communities that live in Brazil’s Rondônia. The group, which comprises several contacted and uncontacted Indigenous communities, were collectively named the Uru-eu-wau-wau by outsiders.)

After one young man, Ari, is murdered, a teenager named Bitaté steps forward to lead the movement. Onscreen we see Bitaté and other fighters arm themselves with bows and daub themselves with paint, as they undertake raids on encroaching miners, ranchers and farmers. They burn down buildings and take prisoners in an attempt to keep the outsiders at bay. “Do you see us breaking into your home?” Bitaté asks one. “Why do you come here?”

The Uru-eu-wau-wau’s first contact with the outside world took place as recently as 1981. In the ensuing 40-plus years, their small population has been reduced through disease and violent altercations with non-Natives. Today, only about 200 Jupaú remain, and they are caught in a life-and-death struggle with the forces of the outside world.

Pritz declines to glamorize Indigenous people in “The Territory,” which is a National Geographic film. (National Geographic has admitted to racist depictions of Indigenous and other peoples in the past and has vowed to do better.) Onscreen, the Uru-eu-wau-wau have one foot in the Amazon and one in modern Brazil. They adorn themselves with feathers and traditional tattoos, but they also wear shorts and T-shirts emblazoned with tribal logos. Their villages are mixtures of thatched huts and corrugated roofs. They are clearly influenced by outside forces, even as they battle them back.

The Jupaú deftly deploy modern technology in their struggle. They use drones to track illegal activities, such land-clearance by bulldozer and fire, and video cameras and cellphones to chronicle misdeeds and trespassing. They also have their own public relations team; according to press notes: “The film relies on vérité footage captured over three years as the community risks their lives to set up their own news media team in the hopes of exposing the truth.”

Tangãi, a member of the Jupaú Surveillance Team, is credited as a cinematographer, and Txai Suruí, a 24-year-old Indigenous activist of the Rondônia’s Suruí people, who made a memorable speech at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, last year, is credited as an executive producer. Other producers include two Oscar nominees: Brooklyn-born Darren Aronofsky and Copenhagen-born Sigrid Dyekjær. This cinematic symbiosis combines sophisticated filmmaking with an Indigenous aesthetic, delivering insight and authenticity.

The documentary also presents the point of view of settlers, who are trying to establish a farmers’ association to advance what they perceive as their rights. The settlers view the Uru-eu-wau-wau section of rainforest as a “promised land” for them to farm, raise herds, and build on —in colonizing rhetoric reminiscent of Manifest Destiny. From the settlers’ perspective, for so much land to be set aside for so few people is unfair, a convenient elision of 500 years of colonial encroachment and the principles of sovereignty. The land belongs to the Uru-eu-wau-wau, who clearly understand its ecological and cultural value. “The Amazon is the heart of the world,” one tribal member says. “The rainforest saves the planet.”

As it chronicles the fight for land, the film works as a critique of consumption and capitalism, exposing some of the hypocrisy of the settlers, who espouse property rights at their convenience.

In many ways, the film echoes the colonization of the United States, through theft and coercion and the genocide and displacement of Indigenous communities. One subject of the film, Neidinha Bandeira, who grew up in northwestern Brazil’s rainforest and is leader and co-founder of the nonprofit Kandidé Ethno-Environmental Defense Association, was fascinated with stories of the American West. “The Indigenous people were already there, so how was it possible that they were expelled from their land and killed and persecuted by the US Army?” she asks. “That always disturbed me a lot.”

While often compelling, the 83-minute film falls short in some areas. It serves as a chronicle of the Jupaú’s conflict, but does little to show the way of life that is at stake. Nevertheless, “The Territory” – which premiered in the World Cinema competition to much acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival – is a profound portrayal of modern colonization. It forces the question: Can the Jupaú survive the endless encroachments of the consumptive world? Can any of us?

The Territory opened in theaters Aug. 19. Click here for details.

Ed Rampell is a film historian and critic based in Los Angeles. Rampell is the author of “Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States” and he co-authored “The Hawaii Movie and Television Book,” now in its third edition. This originally appeared at EarthIslandJournal.org

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2022

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