More Japanese filmmakers than before are venturing outside their domestic comfort zone. But few have gone farther, both geographically and culturally, than Yu Kaneko in his documentary “Mlabri in the Woods.”
An associate professor at Tama Art University, Kaneko has published extensively about cultural anthropology and cinema history, and has made documentaries on a range of subjects.
His new film about the Mlabri, an ethnic group living in the hills of Laos and northern Thailand, began with an encounter in Thailand in February 2017 with Yuma Ito, a Japanese linguist fluent in the Mlabri language.
“He told me that the three Mlabri subgroups hate each other, believing folklore that the others are cannibals, so he’d like to introduce them to each other,” Kaneko tells The Japan Times. “I said it would be a good subject for a film and invited him to work with me.”
Ito accepted the offer and became the film’s lanky, easygoing central figure, as well as Kaneko’s guide. In 2018, they visited the village of Huay Yuak in northern Thailand where about 400 Mlabri, formerly nomads who survived by hunting and gathering, now lead settled lives, with many working as day laborers for the local Hmong farmers.
Yu Kaneko’s documentary ‘Mlabri in the Woods’ centers on the Mlabri, an indigenous group living in the hills of Laos and northern Thailand. | Ⓒ VISIONARY PRODUCTIONS
“When they came down from the hills to live in houses, they needed money, so they had to work in the fields,” Kaneko explains. “They are poor. I would say they are the poorest among (Thailand’s) very poor hill tribes.”
In the film, Mlabri gather in their chief’s house to watch television, the only one in the village. But we also see a storyteller weave a tale about a scary forest spirit called Phi Pre and sing an improvised song, a Mlabri tradition. “The melody has been around for a long time, but the singer tailors the song to his listeners,” Kaneko says.
Crossing over the border to Laos, Ito and Kaneko find a few Mlabri who have come down from the hills to a local village. There they trade and buy, with cigarettes and rice among their purchases. The two Japanese trek to their camp, where about a dozen Mlabri are living in shelters made of bamboo leaves, much as their ancestors did, though they are wearing Western-style clothes.
‘Mlabri in the Woods’ director Yu Kaneko
This peaceful existence is interrupted by a quarrel between a husband and wife, captured by Kaneko’s camera. The wife accuses the husband of unfaithfulness, laziness and not providing for her and her children. “I don’t need such a husband,” she says. “My wife is angry with me,” the husband comments with a rueful grin, eating his meals in a different shelter nearby.
“They have no need for laws in this case,” Kaneko says. “If a husband and wife have separate living quarters and campfires, everyone recognizes that they are divorced. And if another man comes to live with the woman, everyone regards them as married. In a sense, it’s a marriage system based on love, and love alone. I think that’s wonderful.”
Is this way of life about to vanish? “People in Laos believe that the Mlabri should stay in the forest, so I think it will continue,” Kaneko says. “Also, we just learned that there’s another group in Laos other than the one I filmed. And I’ve heard that Mlabri have been spotted in Myanmar as well, so there may be a lot that haven’t been found yet.”
Having been the first to film the Mlabri in Laos, Kaneko wants to continue documenting this little-known indigenous group. “They’re fighting a civil war in Myanmar now,” he says, “but someday I’d like to go there.”
“Mlabri in the Woods” is showing now at Image Forum in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward. For more information, visit www.imageforum.co.jp/theatre/movies/5092 (Japanese only).
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