[/caption]Beyond Survival with Les Stroud remains a work in progress through three episodes. In last week's episode, Les struggled to put his personal stamp on the episode. I assume Les wants his own personal stamp on an episode because such a stamp exists in this episode. With the Sea Gypsies, he was a bystander because he lacked a translator. The communication lines were non-existent. The episode struggled for an identity outside of the premise for the show.
The third episode aired on Discovery is a much better effort from Les Stroud and his crew. In Malaysia, he lived with a large village. In Africa, specifically Namibia, Les lives among the San Bushmen--the oldest tribe in Africa and considered the first people of South Africa. The San Bushmen Les lives with for a week reside in the Kalahari desert. Their way of life is threatened by a number of factors: loss of land, lack of interest by the younger generation in learning survival skills, and the overall threat of assimilation that the modern world presents.
Unlike the previous two episodes, when the show drops the viewers immediately into the culture and the environment, the first ten minutes follow Les' journey to the village. The dunes of Namibia are beautiful. Les spends a few minutes walking the dunes as all sorts of cameras film the dunes--angles from the helicopter, from faraway, close-up. Les follows a very ancient path to the village. The markings on the sides of rocks inform him the direction of water or a village. It takes Les and the crew a full two days to arrive in the village. They travel along flat dirt roads or flat smooth surfaces or grassy trails. Namibia is a flat place.
The most improved aspect of this episode compared to last week's was the focus. Les spent the majority of the episode with a small group of San hunters on a hunt. The extended time with the San allowed for a story to develop naturally rather than a story concocted in post-production through narration.
While the San are in the process of extracting honey from a beehive, using the same method the Veddas used, a San tells Les that his son and brothers do not know how to hunt or extract honey. The hunters are a small group. Besides the threat of the modern world, one wonders how the tribe will continue to live as they want when these males one day pass away. The skills aren't being passed from generation-to-generation like they were long ago. The San Bushmen are a patriarchal bunch so much so that the roles of women were never clearly defined by Les because the San wouldn't speak much about the women in the village. Once the honey was collected, the men ate the honey immediately. The honey extraction happens once a year because of the cycle of bee life; however, each year, the men never return with honey to the village. The honey isn't for women and children. Les doesn't know why.
Following the consumption of honey, Les joins the men for a hunt to find the village food. Before the hunt begins, a poison is created from varying ingredients with elements that aren't toxic until mixed together. The process can be long. The San Bushmen must be careful because an antidote to the poison doesn't exist. The San Bushmen credit their knowledge of the ingredients and the concoction to the ancients they can communicate with during the trans-dance. The tribe uses poisonous arrows to kill large game. The poison kills red bloods, decreasing the level of oxygen in the body until the animal dies from asphyxiation. San Bushmen will track their prey for over 70 miles until the prey succumbs to the poison in their body.
The hunt is an arduous process. Hours are spent walking the lands, surveying the lands, evaluating the tracks in the ground. The hunters then follow the tracks and the trail until they find the place where their desired prey lives. There are an abundance of holes in the desert. Leopards hide in the holes and will leap and attack someone who crosses in front of the hole. Black mambas and other poisonous snakes live in holes as well as very large spiders. Large porcupines live in holes. The porcupines are the target.
Two porcupines can feed the village for a number of days. The village, often, eats only once a day--usually, small portions of rice that neighboring villages offer. Two porcupines are big catches. A member of the San Bushmen will dig into the hole to scare the porcupines into leaving from the other side of their hole where other members await with small spears. The hunt succeeds without anyone being harmed. The men eat small portions of the porcupine to restore their energy because their hikes are long. Water is scare, obviously, so they have to get creative to find clean water. The search for water isn't shown in this episode though.
The San Bushmen believe in the power of the spiritual world. Communication with the spiritual world occurs through the trans-dance. The trans-dance is a long dance that sends its dancers into a trance state of being in which the ancients communicate with them about survival. Les wants to communicate with the spiritual world; however, despite dancing uncomfortably in front of the camera, Les isn't strong enough to enter the state of being required to communicate with the ancients. The shamans dance for over ten hours. A man with no arm, because he injected himself with poison after feeling shame for beating up another male in the village, enters into a trance for the first time in his life after years and years of seeking that spiritual world. The experience makes him a Shaman.
Overall, the third episode of the series is the best yet. Visually, the cameras captured some amazing shots of Namibian twilight, starlit sky and dawk. I've never seen so many stars in my life.
THE SCREENPLAY OF THE DAY
In this economy, seeing many movies isn't cheap. If you're like me, you have no problem reading screenplays rather than watching the actual completed film. If you prefer the visual experience, you probably don't enjoy reading screenplays. I hadn't seen Insomnia so I simply read the script last week. Good times. Today, I have TWO screenplays to recommend:
1. \"Crush\" By David Fury
This is a television screenplay. TV scripts have different structures, are broken up into acts. If you're an aspiring television writer, TV scripts are great pieces to study in preparation for a spec. Buffy, The Vampire Slayer scripts are great to read because the writing is so good, especially this one from David Fury.
2. Inception by Christopher Nolan
Many people have seen the movie, discussed the movie, theorized about its meaning. NOW read the actual screenplay.
THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK
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