Song From The Forest
[rating=4]
Structured around a liturgy rather than a dramaturgy, Michael Obert’s Song From The Forest is a contemplative study of an American, who having lived with a pygmy tribe in a rainforest in the Central African Republic for over twenty years, decides to go back to the Big Apple for a visit. Caught between two worlds, it’s an intelligent look at a way of life under threat – as Louis Sarno, who was lured into the rainforest by the pygmy tribe’s polyphonic chanting stops recording their music for want of musicians – as well as a palpable sense of disorientation and dislocation as Sarno revisits New York and his old friend Jim Jarmusch. But with haunting music, and a killer ending, in Song From The Forest Michael Obert has created a stirring documentary to get lost in.
Song From The Forest is showing on Oct 12th & 17th at the 58th BFI London Film Festival
