A very beautiful, very sad film about the life and despoliation of the tropical rain forest on Borneo. We follow a nomadic group of Penan people who move around subsisting on palm gruel and bush meat. People like them have lived this way for as long as there have been humans. Their way of life is threatened by the advance of "civilization" in the person of loggers hungry for the cash centuries-old trees can bring on the world market and indifferent to the consequences for the indigenous people living there.
It's an old story and no one watching can have any doubt how it will play out. This film is distinguished by the presence of a Swiss national who has decided to chuck it all go native. He lives with these people, using all the same skills and hunting techniques they do and has been doing it for eight years. He serves as our guide and comes across as intelligent and articulate and not at all weird for the life he's chosen.
Subsequent research on the net discloses that Bruno Manser left the jungle, returned to Europe and spent several years advocating for the Penan in the halls of power. After he returned to Malaysia he disappeared, almost certainly murdered by the capitalist thieves whose financial interests he threatened. Twas ever thus.
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