Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / Asch, Patsy / All Films

The Jero Tapakan series

Wed, 5 Sep 2018 11:07:00 GMT

The Jero Tapakan series
Buy Now: $795.00

Jero Tapakan, a spirit medium in a small, central Balinese village, consults with a group of clients in her shrinehouse. An introduction precedes the main seance, providing a visual impression of a seance and background information on the medium and her profession. The clients wish to contact the spirit of their dead son to discover the cause of his death and his wishes for his cremation ceremony. Jero is possessed several times in the course of the seance: first by a protective houseyard deity who demands propitiary offerings that had previously been overlooked; then by the spirit of the petitioner's deceased father, who requests further offerings to ease his path to the other world; and finally by the spirit of the son. In an emotional scene the son's spirit reveals the cause of his premature death (sorcery) and instructions for his forthcoming cremation. Between each possession the medium converses with her clients, clarifying vague points in the often ambiguous trance speech.

Films in the Jero Tapakan series:

A Balinese Trance Seance

Jero on Jero: A Balinese Trance Seance Observed
The Medium is the Masseuse: A Balinese Massage w/Jero Tapakan
Releasing the Spirits: A Village Cremation in Bali

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A Celebration of Origins

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:15:00 GMT

A Celebration of Origins
Buy Now: $320.00

The people of the Tana 'Ai region of Flores, Indonesia live in seven ceremonial domains, of which Wai Brama is the largest and the oldest. The people of Wai Brama are shifting cultivators, hunters and gatherers who, unlike their neighbors, have maintained their traditional ceremonial and social system.

A Celebration of Origins, filmed in 1980, depicts the first celebration of these rituals since 1960. The rituals, which require the participation of the entire community, had been delayed by poor harvests and epidemics. The film focuses on a small group of ritual leaders who struggle to hold the celebration in the absence of the Source of the Domain, the ritual leader of the community, who died after initiating the rituals. Evoking the contested nature of ritual, the film demonstrates how ritual performance implicates delicate political relationships based on pragmatic alliances, festering antipathies or developing jealousies.

Conflict is the thread that weaves together the disparate themes of the film. It is a finely crafted, sensually striking film with a compelling story that focuses on one of the central themes in contemporary anthropological debate: the contested nature of social - and ritual - life.

This film complements E. Douglas Lewis' published work on Tana 'Ai, including People of the Source: The Social and Ceremonial Order of Tana Wai Brama on Flores, in addition to the films Timothy and Patsy Asch made in collaboration with anthropologists James J. Fox and Linda Connor on the islands of Roti and Bali.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS
Society For Visual Anthropology commendation 1993
Award for Excellence, Society for Visual Anthropology Film & Video Festival, 1993
34th Festival dei Popoli, Florence, Italy, 1993
1st Prize, Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, 1994
Margaret Mead Film Festival, New York, California 1993, 1994

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Releasing the Spirits

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:59:00 GMT

Releasing the Spirits
Buy Now: $295.00

Cremation rites are the most elaborate rites of passage performed by Balinese householders. Poor families may wait years before accumulating enough resources to cremate their dead, who are buried in the meantime. In 1978 many more cremations than usual were carried out because of the great purification cermony, Eka Dasa Rudra, held at Bali's main temple, Besakih, in 1979. Religious officials recommended that all Balinese cleanse the island by cremating their dead, as part of the preparations for the great Besakih ceremony. Villagers of limited means pooled their resources to perform group cremations which greatly reduced the cost for each family. This film is about a group of villagers in Central Bali who cooperated to carry out a group cremation.

The film shows the way they approached this task, as well as the cycle of rituals: the cremation, post-cremation, and casting of ashes into the ocean. It had been 15 years since they last held this ceremony. Most of the narration is provided by four participants, recorded as they were watching videotapes of the ceremonies two years later. Each brings a different perspective to the events documented on the film.

The three voices of the filmmakers also provide different insights. This film is linked to the previous films on Bali because it, too, deals with ritual and possession. Furthermore, the cremation is held in Jero Tapakan's hamlet and she is a central participant.

Other films in the Jero Tapakan series

A Balinese Trance Seance & Jero on Jero: A Balinese Trance Seance Observed

Medium is the Masseuse: A Balinese Massage w/Jero Tapakan

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Sons of Haji Omar

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:46:00 GMT

Sons of Haji Omar
Buy Now: $320.00

Haji Omar and his three sons belong to the Lakankhel, a Pashtoon tribal group in northeastern Afghanistan. The film focuses on his family: Haji Omar, the patriarch; Anwar, the eldest, his father's favorite, a pastoralist and expert horseman; Jannat Gul, cultivator and ambitious rebel; and Ismail, the youngest, attending school with a view to a job as a government official.

Filmed over a period of twelve months, it is a record of life at the spring lambing camp, the activities at Narim Bazaar, where the caravan stocks up for the long trek, and the slow ascent to the summer grazing grounds. The spring camp is not far from the provincial center, Baghlan. In May and June they move to mountain pastures in the Hindu Kush. Haji Omar's family home is near the small market town of Narin, sequences show life in the bazaar, classes in the high school and dealings with government officials.

The film ends with the fierce Buskashi games, when the nomads are back in their winter home. In concentrating on relations within one family, and through appropriate use of interviews and conversations, the film manages to draw sharp, colorful portraits of the protagonists and their problems. The film is an authentic, evocative and beautiful account of a little known region and way of life.

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Spear and Sword

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:46:00 GMT

Spear and Sword
Buy Now: $295.00

This traditionally ethnographic sequence film focuses on the negotiations between representatives of two families during a payment of bridewealth.

In the past, the husband's group would carry a spear and a sword to hang in the wife's house. Now, a payment is made as a substitute for the spear and sword. The payment of bridewealth is a long and complex ceremony in which representatives from the husband and wife's family engage in a heated negotiation process. The bride and groom are completely excluded from the negotiations and never appear in the film.

The film begins with an excerpt from a traditional chant about the origin of bridewealth when a daughter of the Sun and Moon married the Lord of the Sea, the Hunter of the Ocean. A brief explanation over slides follows. We then see the bride's representative's collecting the required money and animals while discussing problems that might arise in negotiations. In ritual silence, the men and women chosen to represent the groom walk three kilometers to the bride's family home.

The bulk of the film which follows centers around the transfer of money and animals. The film's strength lies in the raw conversation that occurs between the representatives. At times the conversation seems to follow prescribed forms and at times seems to be a free arena for participants to express humor and to manipulate one another. Politics, ritual and personality intermingle. The men conduct the negotiations while the women. who must be present, observe ritual silence or speak in whispers. Food is served to mark the end of the negotiations and palm gin is served. The groom's representatives eat first. The tensions of the day subside. The film ends when a renowned ritual chanter is asked to recount the history of the first payment of bridewealth.

The raw ethnographic material of this film is perfect for courses covering marriage traditions and rituals as well as the role of men and women in rural Eastern Indonesia.

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The Medium is the Masseuse & Jero Tapakan

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:57:00 GMT

The Medium is the Masseuse & Jero Tapakan
Buy Now: $320.00

The Medium is the Masseuse: A Balinese Massage with Jero Tapakan

Unlike many spirit mediums, Jero Tapakan practices as a masseuse once every three days, when possession is not auspicious. This film focuses on Jero's treatment of Ida Bagus, a member of the nobility from a neighboring town. Jero has been treating her client for sterility and seizures. She begins work this day with religious preparations and the assembling of traditional medicines. Treatment includes a thorough massage, administration of eyedrops, an infusion, and a special paste for the chest.

The dialogue, which is subtitled, includes a detailed discussion between anthropologist Linda Connor, Ida Bagus, and Jero, about the nature and treatment of the illness, as well as informal banter between Jero, her other patients, and people in her houseyard. In an interview, Ida Bagus and his wife speak about the ten-year history of his illness and a variety of diagnoses.

Jero Tapakan: Stories from the Life of a Balinese Healer

Jero, who know sustains a lively practice as both medium and masseuse, recalls her earlier poverty and despair as a farmer, and how she fled her home and wandered briefly in the countryside as a peddler. After serious illness and mystical visions, she returned to her husband and underwent a consecration ceremony as a spirit medium. Here she talks with Linda Connor about these experiences.

Other films in the Jero Tapakan series

A Balinese Trance Seance & Jero on Jero: A Balinese Trance Seance Observed

Releasing the Spirits: A Village Cremation in Bali

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The Water of Words

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 12:25:00 GMT

The Water of Words
Buy Now: $320.00

"Everyone admires Roti", smiles Mias Kiuk, the clan elder. "Though we drink lontar juice, our brains are like gold!"

This film explores the poetry and ecology of the lontar (Borassus) palm on the eastern Indonesian island of Roti. Anthropologist James J. Fox collaborated with the filmmakers to produce an account of the utilization of lontar, a tree that provides the mainstay of the Rotinese diet. Techniques of tapping and cooking the palm juice and its transformation into syrup, beer, and gin ("the water of words") are shown. The film integrates striking visual imagery with the clan leader's description, the paired poetic speech of ritual specialists, and myths that recount the origin of the lontar from the sea.

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