The author of Cobra Gypsies and Hallucinogen Honey Hunters spent three months with the Penan tribe in southern Malaysia, making Borneo Death Blow, gaining insight into exotic cultures and landscapes.
A once thriving tribe of 15,000 people has been drastically reduced over the years as deforestation has scattered, displaced and wiped out many of its members. Their vulnerability to brazen corporate power compromises the integrity and value of their proud culture.
But some stayed. Early in the film, we meet the local Penan who manages to find shelter in a small village in the forest. He prepared a series of arrowheads, which he dipped in the poisonous sap of a native tree. Dart hunting was an essential activity in the Penan culture, and the arduous process often involved significant danger. The tiniest drop of venom under the skin can kill you in minutes.
The Penan tribe are understandably shy and isolated, but they give the filmmakers a rare glimpse into their everyday lives. We see their children play, they hunt and forage, they build cabins, and the communities they are able to sustain in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. We enter their dining halls, hunting grounds, and makeshift classrooms. These are proud nomads, used to overcoming odds, but their way of life is becoming more precarious by the day. This film may represent our final breath into her world and her legacy.
Throughout the film, we learn about the stunning environment of Borneo. These tropical rainforests are home to more than 30 million species of insects, from venomous snakes to centipedes to exotic spiders. Some of them are venomous and deadly, but they are all wonderful to see in their natural habitat.
But much of this majestic vegetation is disappearing. Borneo provides half the world’s timber supply, a resource that makes it a prime location for corporate interests that don’t hesitate to use mafia-like tactics to secure their loot.
Borneo Death Blow is a beautiful observational documentary, clearly produced with great patience and unwavering dedication to its subject.
Directed by: Raphael Treza
