VividSimon Simply Perfect

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Alex Deleon SECRETS OF THE TRIBE" compiled and directed by Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha, viewed at the Los Angeles Film Festival, LAFF, 2010A very thought-provoking documentary focusing on the interference of academic anthropologists in the life of an extremely primitive tribe in the Amazon jungle, the Yanomami, in ways that has threatened the very survival of these people. It is also about the squabbles, scandals, and venomous back-biting among these so-called social scientists, arguing over the authenticity of their "findings", with some soul-searching thrown in regarding the irreparable damage that has been inflicted on the people they are theoretically investigating in the name of "the advancement of science". One French anthropologist, a gay disciple of the famous French anthropological theoretician, Levi Strauss, spent 25 years among the Yanomami, apparently teaching the young boys of the tribe the fine points of European pedophilia. An American scholar went down to the Amazon and came back with a Yanomami wife with whom he has fathered three children who can't count past two — the highest number in the Yanomami language. However he was black-balled from the academic community and couldn't find a teaching job. (You ain't supposed to marry these people –you're just supposed to write papers about them…) — Made me shudder since I was once an "anthro" major myself! should be Required viewing for students of genocide.

kaycebasques This is not a straightforward documentary that presents easily digestible facts that can be carried away and recited. For me, it was more like a trial where many perspectives are laid out for the audience, and it is up to each person to decide where they stand. I think the documentary did a great job in sympathizing with each side and making judgment truly difficult.It's the story of a traumatic epistemological division within an academic discipline. The stakes are high. The divide is nothing short of a disagreement about human nature. One side thinks that there is something in humans that predisposes them towards violence. The other rejects this as a dangerous notion and, even if true (which they probably sincerely do not believe), it is still completely contradictory to the their ethical purpose as academics which is the proliferation and attainment of peace.Complications arise when we learn that the involved parties did some super shady stuff while they were conducting their research. Each side ushers as much incriminating evidence against the others as they can in order to discredit them. They aren't just mindlessly bickering, they are doing this because they have very different epistemological perspectives on human life.On top of this, the documentary calls into question problems that are inherent in the entire field of anthropology (or at least anthro at this time period).I think it would be most enjoyable for people who are interested in this idea that I touched upon--- that it is a story of an academic discipline in epistemological turmoil--- because this happens all the time throughout all of academia.

dreamride-10-890314 I am a filmmaker, former teacher of personal documentary. I have been adopted into two Native American tribes, one by virtue of assistance with a documentary that helped stop, at least temporarily, a huge mining company from poisoning native people. My ONLY heroes have been, and still are, AIM leaders who warned against the "Anthros" in the 60's, who understand that "civilization" as defined by western intellectuals, is not civil at all, and that associating with these people is extremely dangerous culturally. I have personally witnessed Native American Church members used by a very compromised "scientist" in "drug" research (Harvard, to be precise), and noticed the detrimental effect on traditional peoples I have grown to consider family. "Secrets of the Tribe" was the first time I have ever witnessed examination of atrocities and the perverse self-aggrandizement of grant-supported idiots who call themselves "scientists" so objectively documented, and so very EFFECTIVE. As I say to my Native American friends, whenever a white person shows up saying he or she is going to "help" them, and he or she uses the word "research" in the same paragraph, it would be best to simply beat the living crap out of them on the spot. I cannot wait for this documentary to be available commercially. I will buy a dozen copies and sent it to all my native friends who get an ego boost from associating with a white "doctor." Amazing work! Thanks to everyone involved in this wonderful documentary.

Ben Larson My knowledge of anthropology is limited to repeated watching of Bones, but I found this documentary to be extremely interesting.The fact that there is such disagreement among anthropologists makes it difficult to consider that they are truly scientists. It's somewhat akin to Psychology, where there are several right answers to every question.What was most amazing, however, was the actions of some of these scientists while they were out in the field. Studying a people is one thing, but apparently some are not content to do just that and started making changes in their lives. There were indications of pedophilia and even prostitution was introduced in some villages.The value of this film lies not in the anthropological facts, which are quite interesting, but in the discussion of behavior of anthropologists that went clearly over the line.