This combination of authentic original footage and modern interview makes fascinating watching. There are so many surprising aspects to this story. How is it that these people remained undiscovered for so long. Were there no aircraft flights over the area? Was there no trade at all? After seeing this also view Black Harvest for more of this absorbing story.
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cuthbertsons1 March 2002
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From a western viewpoint, the Papua New Guineans' interpretations of seeing 'whiteman' for the first time - with his strange clothes and gadgets, eg. aeroplane and gramophone - can initially seem comical. I think that this is for two reasons:
1) The subtitles do not attempt to soften the New Guineans' direct way of talking. On seeing and hearing the plane, one woman says 'We were pi**ing and sh**ing ourselves'; on seeing a westerner wearing shorts, 'We thought he must have a very long penis wrapped around his waist under that lap-lap (loin cloth).'
2) Their conclusions that the white people were spirits of their ancestors returning from the dead, that the aeroplane was a huge bird, and the gramophone a 'box of ghosts', are of course totally logical, but nevertheless as humorously endearing, as is a child's simplistic logic. (Mentioning this second point can sound condescending and culturally superior – an issue discussed at length in the American Anthropological Association paper "Laughing at First Contact", Visual Anthropology Review, AnthroSource, March 2006.)
The Leahy brothers are not portrayed as particularly shrewd and exploitative, and state frankly that they were there in search of gold, Eldorado-style. It's quite believable that they shot and killed to protect themselves from attack, if indeed their other-worldly status dissolved so soon, and their steel spades and axes so quickly became objects of desire. In further support of the Leahy's 'defensive' killings is the notion that belligerence and inter-tribal aggression is evidently an entrenched part of the society. (See the second film of the trilogy, 'Joe Leahy's Neighbours'.)
Regarding the Australians' influence upon 'currency', the programme suggests that notions of wealth and status were already in existence: their manifestation in terms of land and pig tenure simply had a new dimension added: kina pearl shells – to inevitably one day become paper money of course, which itself, ironically, is also the kina, PNG's national currency.
It would have been interesting if, during their interviews with the two surviving Leahy brothers, Connolly and Anderson had probed them about their activities with girls. The girls themselves – now elderly women in 1983 – talk frankly and casually about how they were encouraged by their own husbands to lay with Masta Mick and his brothers in exchange for shells. They overcame their initial fear, gained some trust of the white men, were impregnated, and today appear proud of their mixed-race offspring. We learn about one, Joe Leahy, in the third installment of the trilogy, 'Black Harvest'. Whether or not you would term this sexual trading 'exploitation' depends on your point of you. In any case Joe Leahy is (arguably) portrayed as a man of relative dignity who who tries hard to straddle, even to bridge, the abyss between his parents' cultures, prioritising his own business success whilst also trying and advance the Gariga tribe's wealth through coffee farming. Again, you may or may not deem his actions exploitative, depending on your reaction to 'Black Harvest'.
The 'it's-come-from-the-sky!' reactions of the New Guinean people in First Contact reminded me of the well-known South African film The Gods Must Be Crazy, a fictional comedy in which a Kalahari bushman finds a glass bottle which has dropped from a plane. In that film tragedy underlies the humour, tragedy which is fully revealed in the DVD's accompanying 'making of' documentary. Meanwhile, although First Contact shows 'whiteman's' sudden arrival jolting the very foundations of the Highland communities, shattering their hitherto self-contained world, and catapulting them into a process of rapid familiarization with the West, the film makers do not inherently suggest any negative repercussions triggered by the Leahy brothers' coming, even if there in fact were.
To stumble upon this powerful documentary on You Tube was an enlightening experience - though unfortunately it no longer seems available there. The book upon which the film is based - also called First Contact, also by Connolly and Anderson - may be even more detailed and fascinating. Whether or not it is, as another reviewer has commented, such instances of 'first contact' with isolated communities of people caught on audio-visual record must be few and far between - even more so today than in 1930. -
kes15 January 2007I saw this movie during an anthropology film festival years ago, then taped it when it appeared on PBS. Years later it still haunts me. The Leahy brothers, opportunists, knew they were witnessing history, and had the foresight to film the natives. Most compelling to me are the expressions on the faces of the villagers when they first encountered the explorers. If you haven't seen this film, and can get your hands on a copy, you will be astonished. It's been too long since I've seen the film (lost my own copy), but I believe it also includes a revisit to the villages many many years later which is also extremely interesting to hear the villagers who recalled the explorers. This is a great film.
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If there is anything else Like this film, someone please let me know. To my knowledge, there is not and cannot ever BE anything like this ever made, EVER AGAIN (!) ... it is the only recorded example (of which I am aware) that provides actual visual first hand EVIDENCE (yes, i'll call it Evidence) of a long ago passed and never to recur moment in human history, that of the ''First Contact'' between the 'modern world' and ''primitive'' Peoples with absolutely NO IDEA that Any People OTHER THAN THEMSELVES existed ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET !!
This is singular material that was recorded perhaps at the Last Possible moment in the worlds history that Ever Again there might BE people who'd be Actally UNAWARE that anyone existed Other than themselves, anywhere in the world.
What is Unique in this case and Most significant -- it is very likely too that these people had never even seen an airplane in the sky !!
At that Time the film was taken -- only a year or two after Charles Lindberg's flight across the Atlantic, the airplane was still a relatively 'rare' machine ...and certainly while in today's world there is probably no one, no matter How remote, who hasn't at least SEEN an airplane fly overhead, at the time these films were taken it is actually Very likely that these people had never before even been 'overflown'.
I think it is truly 'too bad' that so few people have seen this film. If I were King of the World, no one would get a diploma from ANYWHERE without having seen this film. Not a diploma from a barber school or Oxford. Come to think of it, wouldn't be able to run for political office or have a gov'rnment job either, unless you'd seen it. -
I've had a long fascination with Papua New Guinea which, at the time of writing in 2022, remains a place unlike almost anywhere else in the world, in terms of the cultural norms which still operate over much of the country- still partially resistant to global westernisation.
As a result, I stumbled across the Lonely Planet travel guide to the country which highly, highly recommended this film. I found it in full, by watching it in two halves which were posted on Vimeo, and was absolutely blown away.
The film follows the Australian Leahy brothers, as they are the first Europeans to enter New Guinea's interior, and their consequent encounters with local tribes, in the densely populated highlands, which were completely unknown to westerners. The video footage alone is god-smacking, but it's masterfully put together with interviews from the Leahy brothers, and locals who were children at the time, as 'giant birds' (planes) and 'spirits' (white people) rained down from the skys.
The edits won Connolly and Anderson several awards and nominations, and didn't shy away from the darker side to exploring an area rife with tribal warfare in search of capital gains, and the documentary starts and ends with an explosive ethical dimension.