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About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
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Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
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Film Festival 2025
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Archive of past editions
RAI FILM
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About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Menu
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
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Films
found one film
Keywords
“Rural”
x
Year of production
“1972”
x
Status
“A”
x
films with a digital version
1
Region
South-East Asia
1
Country
China
1
Keywords
Ritual
1
Rural
1
x
Shamans and Shamanism
1
Social Organisation
1
War / Conflict / Reconciliation
1
Directors
Curling, Chris
1
Moser, Brian
1
Series
Disappearing World Series
1
Country of production
United Kingdom
1
Year of production
1972
1
x
Status
Film
The Meo
1972
52
‘
Directed by
Brian Moser
Chris Curling
.
Over the last three thousand years the Meo (Miao or Hmong) have migrated south from north and central China to avoid oppression and protect their way of life. Today they live in scattered mountain villages in south China and south-east Asia; and the 250,000 of them who live in the Kingdom of Laos have suffered greater losses, relative to their numbers, in the Indo-China wars than any other single group. In 1972, when this film was made, the Vietnam war was still at its peak; therefore it is not surprising that a fairly straightforward ethnographic account is combined with a more journalistic analysis of the political situation. Indeed it would be difficult to approach a discussion of the Meo without such an emphasis, and the review in RAIN (listed below) is a useful supplement to this. In effect, the film’s narrative divides into two parts: first we are introduced to a village which managed to remain neutral and avoid the worst effects of the war (which was why the anthropologist chose it for his fieldwork). The daily life and material culture of the Meo people are shown as they sow rice using slash-and-burn agricultural methods, distil opium for sale and entertainment, and discuss with the anthropologist their fear of conscription and its effects on other villages. Two rituals are shown ( the shaman who performed them was the close friend of the anthropologist) one to banish a nightmare, the other to exorcise the spirit of a man which haunts the house of the brother who accidentally killed him while out hunting. In the second part of the film we see the Meo who live in American-run refugee camps (which is the majority of them), far removed form the village life of their fellows. The interviews with some of the Meo pilots who fly American B28 bombers over their homeland emphasise the tragic absurdities of such a war; for these Meo are not sure exactly who the ‘enemy’ are, each one giving vague answers to the interviewer’s questions. M. Barber and J. Lemoine 1977. `Two Letters from Indo-China’. RAIN, 21, pp. 1–6.
South-East Asia
War / Conflict / Reconciliation
Shamans and Shamanism
Ritual
Social Organisation
Rural