The island of Sumatra is unfortunately probably best known recently for being devastated by the tsunami of a few years back. Whole areas of the island were devastated, with the Aceh province almost completely ceasing to exist as a population centre with the city of Bandah Aceh being completely obliterated.
Darwin didn't need to travel as far as the Galapagos islands to discover mutations of standard species that had evolved to be dominant. Any isolated island environment would have shown him the same phenomena. Sumatra, Australia, New Zealand, or any island of size and initial isolation has developed animal life unique to its environment. Humans are no different than the rest of the animal world when it comes to patterns of development; it's how unique cultures have grown up all over the world.
Indigenous cultures throughout the world developed based on the need for survival. The Hopi of the pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona developed their culture based on the need to be able to grow crops in an area with one of the lowest average rainfalls in the world. Rituals, prayers, and life focused totally around ensuring the crops would grow and the people would survive. So although Sumatra is politically considered part of Indonesia, it's not surprising to discover that her people's culture is unique, having developed in isolation on an island.
A newly released DVD from the audio and video collective Sublime Frequencies from Seattle, Washington brings together footage shot on three separate occasions in Sumatra prior to the disaster of the tsunami. The footage focuses primarily on the music of the people and the ways it's been changed by outside influences, while holding on to elements unique to its own culture. While the majority of the footage is taken from snippets of television shows, movies, and shots of concerts and rehearsals, there are also scenes of life in the various metropolitan areas of the island.
Sumatran Folk Cinema is a collage of sounds and sights that does its best to give you an objective view of Sumatran life. Unlike traditional documentaries that come complete with a point of view as expressed by a voiceover or through interviews with people, the filmmakers Mark Gergis and Alan Bishop have elected to allow the imagery to tell its own story. It's a story that's at times funny, at times disturbing, and at other times awe inspiring. Underneath it all, though, there is a current of sadness, because of the realization that a year or so after some of these pictures were taken the houses and streets we are seeing were destined to be obliterated by the tsunami.
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