WEATHER STATIONS

MEMORIES
OF AN ISLAND
Xiaolu Guo, London
Island
1. North Sentinel Island
In the film, there is an island. Since I saw it fifteen years ago, this faded colour
documentary has haunted me. It was shot from a small boat, off the coast of the island.
The occupants of the boat were there to record the behaviour of the island’s inhabitants.
In the gaze of the camera’s long lens, naked tribal men are frantically running along
the beach. And our civilized modern documentary makers watch them from the sea
— afraid to set foot on shore. When I think about these images, they remind me of the
early anthropological films of Robert J. Flaherty or Jean Rouch. The violent dance of the
islanders remains forever a symbol of innocence in my memory.
They are members of the Sentinelese People, and they lived on North Sentinel Island
in the Indian Ocean’s Andaman archipelago. With thousands of years of isolation from
the world, their hostile attitude towards outsiders was famous. Stark, black, Africanlooking,
lean with strong legs, they ran like leopards across grassland. You can tell
this even from the blurred images shot from a distant camera on a boat. As well as the
cameraman, there were three other men in the boat, including a thoughtful-looking
Indian anthropologist. The trip was intended to be a ‘Contact Expedition’ with the tribe
on the island. But it didn’t work out like that. In the documentary, you can see the tribal
people growing more and more angry as the boat gets closer to the island. They raise
their spears and scream at the approaching filmmakers. It looks as if they are going
to launch their weapons at the invaders. The camera keeps filming these gesticulating
natives. Occasionally, the islanders fire a shower of arrows at the boat people. The boat
stays on the wavy, windy sea, in deep, treacherous water, which can’t easily be accessed
by any swimming natives. The thoughtful-looking anthropologist says something to
his colleague, then the colleague begins to shout incomprehensible language to the
islanders, whilst, in a vain gesture of friendliness, he raises two coconuts and a few
bananas. We modern audiences understand this sort of body language easily, but it
MEMORIES OF AN ISLAND
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