Educational Media Reviews Online

Many documentaries considering indigenous people maintaining sustainable living practices rely heavily on gratuitous and broad landscape imagery to create a visual context for the subjects and the viewer. Survival Prayer focuses instead quite closely on the minutiae of a subsistence lifestyle of the Haida people of Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlottes). The resulting film features intimate views of a Haida community, and their harvested food sources: faces creased by age and sun, bodies drawing in fishing nets, spruce tips bending under a harvesting hand, seaweed dripping on a tidal flat, and salmon meat drying in a smoking shed. We hear a Haida elder narrate a creation story in the native language, and we hear the stories of Haida foragers, loggers, and fishers, reflecting on the traditions passed down through generations of island inhabitants, contrasted by concerns about the introduction of Western perspectives about resources and land use. In choosing to focus on simple aspects of the traditional Haida lifestyle, we are afforded a visually rich and emotionally compelling albeit limited perspective.

Because of these choices about perspective and content, we miss an opportunity to consider the Haida people and their lifestyles within a complex regional and global environment. Survival Prayer is recommended for collections relating to anthropology, Native American studies, sustainability, and environmental studies.

Awards

• Special Jury Prize for Direction Sarasota Film Festival