Living our lives of ease and luxury in the cities of the world it's easy to forget that there are places on the planet where life is hard and unforgiving. Where a simple error in judgment can easily lead to dangerous accidents or even loss of life. We see photographs of the high Arctic or the Sahara Desert and we wonder at their harsh beauty. Seemingly lifeless, they both offer vista's of what seems like unchanging landscape for miles in every direction. Yet appearances are deceptive as each of them are home to not only a variety of plants and animals, but people as well.
Traditionally the people of both lands were nomadic, but gradually the lands they once utilized to hunt or graze their flocks have been taken away from them. Whether it's permanent cities and their auras of waste that spread for miles in every direction, men trying to harvest the gifts that lay just below the earth's crust, or borders between countries, the wanderers of this world are no longer as free to travel as they once were. However while some have elected to settle among the cities of this new world, others have found ways to adapt to the changes and maintain the life of their ancestors.
Documentary film maker Hisham Mayet spent the better part of two years travelling through the Sahara desert filming and recording the people and the musicians he met there. One of the results of that trip is a new documentary DVD, Palace Of The Winds, being released on May 12th by Sublime Frequencies. However, don't expect your normal documentary movie with voice overs and talking heads leading you by the hand to tell you a story because that's not Mayet's way. His camera and sound equipment give you eyes and ears to see and hear the world he is travelling through but he leaves you to form your own impressions based on the information you're able to absorb.
Throughout the length of the roughly 55-minute film Mayet cuts between footage he shot while travelling between Guelmim in Southern Morocco and Nouakchott in Mauritian and footage of five groups of musicians he met along the way. With the music playing in the background as we travel through cities, nomad camps, and desert landscapes, we gradually begin to understand the context within which it was created. From the Atlantic coast in Morocco where the tidal flats appear to butt up against the beginnings of the Sahara, the sands and hills shaped by the wind that are the desert, a collection of felt and hide tents seemingly in the middle of nowhere that makes up an encampment, the back streets of a city lined with sun-baked clay buildings crumbling onto the sidewalk, to wide avenues cutting through a modern city; all are part of the world these people move through.
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