The headhunters of Borneo
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The headhunters of Borneo |
| Country of production | German Empire , Netherlands |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1936 |
| length | 65 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Victor Baron von Plessen |
| script |
Gregor von Rezzori , Hans von Praag Walther Kiaulehn |
| production | Victor Baron von Plessen |
| music | Wolfgang Zeller (1952) |
| camera |
Richard Angst , Hannes Staudinger , Walter Traut |
Die Kopfjäger von Borneo is a German-Dutch documentary from 1936 that was made in the villages of Longlelu and Peleben on the upper reaches of the Kayan River in Borneo . Against the background of impressive pictures from the life of the Kenyah - Dayaker who live there , a regionally well-known story of their legends is staged. The actors are all indigenous amateur actors. The director is the explorer, painter, ornithologist and ethnographer Victor von Plessen (1900–1980), who had shot his famous film Island of Demons in Bali three years earlier . His expedition and film crew included u. a. his wife Marie-Izabel, b. Rücker, Freiin von Jenisch, the Austrian Walter Traut , the ethnologist and documentary filmmaker Dr. Friedrich Karl Dalsheim , the writer Gregor von Rezzori and the cameraman Richard Angst , who became famous for the film The White Hell from Piz Palü (1929), and his colleague Walter Traut.
action
The film shows the life of the Dayaker in Borneo as it once was. Against this background, a love story unfolds, namely the one between a slave girl and the son of the chief of the village, who grow up together and feel connected and determined for one another from the start. Between this village and a neighboring village there had been repeatedly bloody disputes in the past until both decided to make peace with each other. This is sealed for all time by the blood brotherhood of the chiefs and the agreement that the chief children, when they grow up, should marry one another. When the chief dies one day, the time has come for the elaborate marriage ceremony. The chief's son does not dare to oppose, even if his heart belongs to his childhood friend. They secretly meet again and again until this becomes known and both, obeying the will of the gods, have to leave the village. The story reflects an ancient Dayaker legend and brings to mind Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther , except that here the rebellion against the social order does not result in death, but rather love wins.
Scoring and film music
The original von Plessens film was a silent film . The film only received the soundtrack with the soundtrack in the 1952 version. The soundtrack was composed by Wolfgang Zeller , who set many films to music in Zeit Lebens. His last work was the music for the documentary Serengeti must not die (1959) by Bernhard Grzimek .
Reviews
In “Cinema of the world” it is said that, in contrast to other ethnographic films of the time, one does not see “white” people in the film. Obviously von Plessen wanted to show the original culture as "uninfluenced" as possible. In this regard, film as an anthropological document is much more important than the films of other documentary filmmakers of the time, including those by Flaherty or WS van Dyke. Wonderful close-ups and beautiful nature images would make this film so appealing, even if one did not care about its ethnographic value. The knowledge that he was photographed by Richard Angst would say it all, but the footage would speak for itself even without that knowledge.
Book about the film
- Victor von Plessen: With the headhunters of Borneo. Schützen-Verlag, Berlin, 1936.
Web links
The headhunters of Borneo in the Internet Movie Database (English)