Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Ta Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)July 27th, 2001
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Attention, all gay Jewish cannibals! Are you tired of Hollywood's stereotypical portrayal of your unique lifestyle? Then David and Laurie Shapiro have just the film for you. It's called Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale, and it just happens to be one of the best and most intriguing documentaries to hit the screen in quite some time.
River, which just won the Independent Spirit "Truer Than Fiction" Award and has taken home trophies from just about every film festival it has played, chooses 76-year-old Tobias Schneebaum as its subject. He seems like a typical old man ravaged by time, hobbling around New York City with an artificial hip and Parkinson's Disease, but Schneebaum can tell tales that would make the toughest sailor whimper.
Schneebaum was a promising young painter who, in the '50s, received a Fulbright scholarship to study Peruvian art. He disappeared into the woods and, like Michael Rockefeller, was presumed to have been killed and eaten by one of the country's headhunting tribes. But months later, Schneebaum emerged from the jungle covered in paint and full of stories about taking part in both bloody tribal battles and cannibalistic acts. Needless to say, Schneebaum shocked the talk show circuit (clips of Charlie Rose and Mike Douglas are included, and quite funny) with his gruesome tales about indulging in the other other white meat, as well as his participation in numerous homosexual acts.
Schneebaum was never quite the same since "the Peruvian experience," which made him give up painting (he still draws) and abandon any future excursions to the country. But filmmakers David and Laurie Shapiro were somehow able to talk him into returning to his old chomping grounds, where he chews the fat with some of his old buddies, who have long since abandoned their cannibalistic ways, human auctions and nudist lifestyle (proving there is little difference between the words "nudist" and "nutso"). It may just be me, but a tribe of ex-headhunters puts me at ease as much as a country full of ex-Nazis.
It's difficult to believe, but Schneebaum's trip back to Peru isn't even the best part of the film. Before heading to South America, the Shapiros and their delicate subject visit Asmat, New Guinea, where Schneebaum lived for several years (River's title comes from a book he wrote about Asmat) and practiced gay aboriginal polygamy. We also get plenty of background on Schneebaum, watching him educate rich, white cruise-ship patrons about Indonesian art and anthropology, as well as fielding the inevitable "How do people taste?" questions from a group of students on a field trip to a Manhattan museum.
We also see some pretty amazing sights, too - not the pedestrian Travel Channel stuff, but off-the-beaten-path things like mass ceremonial circumcisions and the beautiful ruins of Machu Picchu (and the even more magnificent view attendant thereto). But most amazing of all is Schneebaum, who will make you think twice about the mild-mannered old man sitting next to you on the bus. The only thing that might have made this more interesting is if it was directed by Errol Morris. But the Shapiros (brother and sister) do a strong enough job telling Schneebaum's story to make up for the stylistic shortcomings.
1:30 - R for depiction of mature thematic material (nudity and circumcision)
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