The global village is not exactly a novel notion. But that term is generally associated with the Internet era and the ability to obtain information about and from, and communicate with, far-flung areas of the planet at the click of a computer mouse button or a cellphone key.
That facility has allowed us to discover the uniqueness of exotic places and different cultural milieus, but it has also unearthed common denominators. We have learned that people from different countries and continents are perhaps not that dissimilar to us.
That is one of the inescapable conclusions one draws from Night of the Coyotes, a documentary made by 38-year-old Austrian writer-director Clara Trischler, who has a lengthy sojourn in Jerusalem in her bio. The film will be shown at the Jerusalem Cinematheque on November 27 (6:15 p.m.) as part of this year’s Anthropological Film Festival. The 13th edition of the event runs three days (November 26-28) and, as usual, covers a broad range of themes and issues, with films from Italy, Mongolia, India, the Amazons, Denmark, and France, to mention but a few contributory sources.
Since its founding, the festival has paired screenings with lectures by academics from a relevant field, or discussions by learned experts on the subject matter. Trischler’s work will be followed by a talk by Prof. Nir Avieli, head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, who has a plethora of experience, training, and street-level acumen to bring to the venture.
His stated areas of interest include material and visual culture, health and the body, religion and religiosity, economics and work, conflict and politics, agriculture and food, and tourism. Not all of the above will feature in his post-screening lecture, but he is a good choice for enlightening his audience about the ramifications of existential situations such as the circumstances in which the residents of El Alberto in Mexico live.
There are only around 500 people in the village, which has a surprisingly fancy vacation site, complete with an enormous swimming pool and zip lines. But the population is dwindling alarmingly as more locals opt to attempt the highly dangerous trek to the US border, almost 1,000 km. to the north, and cross illegally into “the land of opportunity.”
An initiative by one of the villagers named Virgilio, who managed the challenging odyssey himself but was deported back to Mexico several years later, offers tourists an opportunity to take part in a hands-on experience that seeks to recreate some of the scary conditions endured by the illegal immigrants. The hope is that the project will boost the local economy and prevent the community from dying out completely.
The film spawns all sorts of questions and issues that are not imparted in the documentary blurb, which focuses on the role-play activity. Avieli gets that. “The background data stresses the Caminata Nocturna (Night Walk), the touristic aspect, but the story is really about a community which is emptying out due to emigration, and about the desperate effort to cross from Mexico into the United States,” he explains. There are wider-reaching repercussions for all concerned. “There is the price the community has to pay when it does things like this. The heart of the matter is the drama.”
"It really touches the heart”
The emotive side of the undertaking comes across in various forms. There are the corporeal trials and tribulations of the escapees led along perilous routes by traffickers, known in the trade as “coyotes,” hence the film title. And there is the anguish of parents who leave their children behind in search of a better material life, compounded by the suffering of their offspring abandoned by their parents. “It is very difficult and really touches the heart,” Avieli notes.Tourism, he believes, is worth a discerning look or two. “There is the question of the motivation of tourists. What tempts tourists to travel around the world. There is a lot of sociological and anthropological literature about that. The conventional view is that tourists want to see something different, something extraordinary.” The reality of the matter, it seems, does not toe that assumed line.
In a world where we constantly seek instantaneous gratification, courtesy of our digital information appliances, Avieli places the excitement factor high up in the tourism consumerism stakes. “The classic claim is that tourists look for something different. However, when you check what tourists actually do, you discover they want to sleep in a Hilton hotel, have running hot water and ‘normal’ food – that means the kind of food they are used to from home. They don’t really want something extraordinary.”
The Caminata Nocturna project seems more than a little unreal. Why should anyone, of their own volition, go through an – albeit staged – experience that is, to say the very least, unpleasant? They also shell out for the privilege, even though we are not talking about a bank-breaking amount for the average tourist who makes a decent living.The full vacation village package costs a “princely” 340 pesos, just over $17. “You can see who goes for that,” says Avieli. “You can see by the color of the skin they come from the middle classes or higher.”
Here we come to a reality check in an increasingly virtual world. “The theory that lies at the base of the anthropological discourse is that if we relate to tourism as a Western practice which goes from the global north to the global south (the wealth divide), tourists want to experience authenticity.”
Punctuation marks serve a key defining role here. “Tourists want to encounter authenticity without inverted commas, but the tourism industry gives them authenticity with inverted commas.” The customers, Avieli believes, are not oblivious to the ruse. “They know that. There are delicate negotiations involved here. Tourists don’t like the touristic stuff, but they don’t discern the paradox in that.”
That may be so, but the folks behind the Caminata Nocturna enterprise do their best to provide the participants with their money’s worth, and they are indeed put through the mill. While they are clearly aware that they are engaging in role play, the facial expressions of the tourism consumers suggest they are fully on board for the emotional ride.So, is this a cynical attempt to manipulate thrill seekers into forking over their hard-earned cash? Or should we applaud Virgilio and his pals from El Alberto for coming up with an inspired idea that may provide their community with a longer lease of life?
Trischler pulls out all the directorial stops to depict not only the troubling facts on the ground. There are tranquil long shots aplenty betwixt the dialogue and the action. There is a fundamental creative-ideological element here that demands scrutiny.
All documentaries that, in general, we view as a portrayal of things as they really are, are based on a script and proffered to the public only after undergoing deft editing. Perhaps, if we were to get ourselves over to El Alberto, we would have a very different picture of life there. Perhaps not.
Regardless, there are basic human issues here, such as what really constitutes quality of life. Is that the perceived holy trinity of money-house-car? Is the neighbor’s grass truly greener? Is that a notion that, for example, could be applied in the context of Palestinians or Syrian refugees? And, taking an enormous economic leap here, what about the thousands of Israelis who have relocated – naturally, of their own volition – to Portugal or elsewhere?
Whether we will be any the wiser after watching Night of the Coyotes, who knows? But it surely leaves us with food for thought. The same can be said for the other films in the festival, which look at such intriguing and perplexing issues as identity, ecology, freedom, and societal mores.
For tickets and more information:jer-cin.org.il/en/lobby/13th-anthropological-film-festival