The Bushmen (and women) are back -- in Simon Stadler/Catenia Lermer's GHOSTLAND

The very first scene of GHOSTLAND -- African natives viewing an airplane -- a new documentary about the bush people of Namibia, may have us elders recalling a very popular, though to my mind rather heavy-handed and condescending movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy, which detailed a Bushman's interface with modernity in a highly comic manner. This new movie, while having its funny moments, is much more even-handed (the earlier film was a narrative, in any case), as it shows us a bush tribe undergoing some change and adaptation to the world of today.

As co-written (with Catenia Lermer) and directed by Simon Stadler (the latter shown at right) -- this is a first film for each of them -- the movie makes up in simplicity, honesty and feeling what it may lack in slick professionalism. It captures the character -- individually and as a group -- of this unusual Ju'Hoansi tribe in ways that range from funny and charming to quietly compelling. The movie also makes its points without condescension -- to both those natives and the western world with which they must increasingly interact.

Initially, it's the western world that comes to them. "The first time we saw the white man, we thought it was a ghost," one of them explains (hence the movie's title), and even when the tribe gets to know the western world and its discontents, it still remains unconvinced. "Sometimes white people are crazy," one explains. "They want too much and work too much, and it seems they never sleep.” Amen.

Seeing a homeless man begging in a German city, "It seems white people can also be poor." Still, the tribe is indeed learning the ropes of "civilization." As one of them notes, "We have to work with the tourists to survive." First the whites and their crew get to know the natives (and so, of course, do we) and then they take them on a kind of "field trip" to the modern world. Seeing the tribe and its first experiece in a supermarket is as much of a wonder to us as the supermarket is to them.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the film takes our tribe into the world of another African tribe, the Himbas (that's a Himba woman, above), and the interplay is fascinating. Then the opportunity arises for four of the natives to take an extended trip to Germany where they will mix and even "teach." From being up in that airplane they watched at the film's beginning to taking a trip in the subway ("We are under the earth!"), the four tribe members take in our modern world in wonder but with irony and intelligence. And yes, they do teach.

The update we learn in the end credits is both helpful and sad. One wishes to know why certain events occurred. In fact, there is a lot more we might have learned here. But the filmmakers obviously preferred to simply watch and listen, rather than do a lot of questioning. Even so, what we see, hear and feel should make budding anthropologists thrill, and folk who love documentaries just happy to have experienced the film.

From Cargo Film & Releasing and Autlook Film Sales, Ghostland opens tomorrow, Wednesday, December 14, in New York City for a two-week run at Film Forum, Elsewhere? Not sure. But you can at least learn more via the film's website.

SWEETGRASS -- the Sheep, Prarie and Mountain doc -- opens at Film Forum

Sheep, bless 'em, are all over the place in SWEETGRASS, the new documentary by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash, which is all about herding, driv-
ing, birthing, shear-
ing, protecting, feed-
ing and otherwise caring for the woolly beasts. You'll never have imagined that sheep could be so fascinating, charming, funny and beautiful to watch and listen to (oh, the bleating!).

For awhile. And then...
Not so much.

Fortunately, there are other points of interest in this somewhat (even at only 101 minutes) overlong film that may prove of more interest to the anthropologically inclined than to the typical film buff. Along the way, however, there is some stunning photography, as well as the occasional unforgettable shot. (I think I may always remember the sheep -- what looks like thousands of them --

moseying down the center of some small-town
main street.)

More than anything else, however, the film unintentionally has me asking a question: Has narration simply been done away with in today's documentaries? Certain filmmakers, particularly those whose documen-
taries unspool over hours (Maysles and Wiseman come to mind) have the time to let their exposition unroll, with ample hours for their audience to explore and learn what is going on. (During the editing process, smart filmmakers will also know what to leave in and what to take out, so that the viewer begins to understand all that is happening.)

Shorter films, however (like this one and last week's Old Partner), often need at least a bit of explanation. And while the press kits for most movies offer reams of this, it is not available to the average moviegoer, and in any case, would be more useful during the screening or before the film is to be viewed.

Sweetgrass offers almost no narration or information except what we learn from the few very taciturn cowboys on view. Even then, it takes nearly 20 minutes of viewing before the first actual word is spoken (up to then it has all been "bleat, bleat, bleat"). We know these cowboys are driving the the huge herd somewhere and why, but surely there are so many interesting little things about the drive that we might learn and which the cowboys take for granted. But no: the filmmakers have decided to simply show and not tell. While I admire this choice in a good narrative film, it can be a frustrating one in a documentary -- to which we generally come to learn as well as enjoy.

Back to the film itself: the shots of the shearing process may take some of us back to that fine Australian movie Sunday Too Far Away, and the vistas are so drained of color in the winter that, when a roll of grass is spread out before the sheep, it almost looks like a CGI effect. As for the cowboys, the bits we see of them, because we see so little (compared with those sheep), seem to take on additional meaning. At one point one of them tells a joke about a new brain, and we can't help but think about the fate of this dying breed.

There's an awful lot of walkie-talkie usage, which must be a huge help to the men, though it bored the hell out of this viewer. And the sometimes constant bleating of the sheep grows tiring, too. (Little wonder the men camp over the next hill when possible.) One conversation on a mountaintop via cell phone, however, should surprise you. Taking place between a cowboy, nearly in tears, and his mom, this is not the buttoned-up Gary Cooper-type we've come to expect, but one sorrowful, flesh-and-blood-and-in-pain fellow.

Sweetgrass opens its two-week run at Film Forum on Wednesday, January 6. You can find additional screenings to come across the country by clicking here.