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HOUSE
OF THE TIGER KING
7/10
Sweden
(Swe/UK) 2004 : David FLAMHOLC : 105 mins
 The
carvings on this enormous rock face are quite unique. Most impressive
are the deeply incised, double bordered heart-shaped faces. Some glyphs
are pan-Amazonian in style, while others are unclassifiable. They cover
a rock face, stretching for about 75 feet along the rock, up to a height
of nine feet. The Machiguenga with us admitted to having absolutely no
knowledge as to the glyphs' meaning or origin--the carvings had simply
always been there.
Gregory Deyermenjian, www.paititi.com
Though one
of the less hyped entries at 2004's Edinburgh Film Festival - its only
previous exposure had been at the Gothenburg FF - House of the Tiger
King proved one of the event's more unexpected crowdpleasing highlights.
It's rollicking post-modern ripping-yarn deconstructionist documentary,
in which film-maker Flamholc (Swedish, posh, thirtyish) and writer-explorer
Tahir Shah (British, wildly enthusiastic, fortyish) penetrate the Peruvian
rainforest of Madre de Dios in search of the 'lost city' of Paititi, aka
El Dorado, aka 'The House of the Tiger King.' Not that we're ever really
told who this 'Tiger King' is or was.
And nor do
our heroes ever actually track down Paititi. That isn't a spoiler, by
the way - the film's first scene is as frank an admission of failure as
that which so audaciously kicks off Stanislaw Lem's novel His Master's
Voice. Instead Flamholc adopts the well-worn approach pioneered by
A J A Symons in his book The Quest for Corvo, whereby the searcher
hopes that the tale of the journey is sufficiently engaging, entertaining
and interesting to compensate for the lack of a pot at the rainbow's end.
Then again, as Flamholc and Shah admit, even if they had tracked
down Paititi - whose existence has tormented western adventurers (such
as Deyermenjian, above) for centuries - they would probably have kept
shtum about it.
This kind
of openness is what makes House of the Tiger King so refreshing.
The process of film-making , which documentarists so often attempt
to hide, is acknowledged at every stage ("We'll fix it with a line
of voice-over.") Flamholc reveals on more than one occasion that
such and such was done mainly for the cause of making the film better,
as when Shah pays a visit to some gruesome mummified corpses which have
virtually nothing to do with the Paititi shenanigans. But the tangential
stuff is usually so freakishly oddball that it's not hard to give Flamholc
the benefit of the doubt - one of the very first scenes features a jawdropping
diagnosis via guinea-pig, the hapless creature being disembowelled and
its entrails pored over by a rain-forest haruspex.
Such larkishness
- which mercifully stays just the right side of backpacker-trail cuteness
- means that material which is apparently a recipe for Werner
Herzog-style boundary-probing instead becomes much more of a freewheeling
kind of romp: Shah's preferred plan of attack is to blunder around in
the hope that he'll just "stumble" over whatever it is he's
looking for, even if this means passing through the dreaded "zone
of negative energy." As the film progresses, however (its rickety
structure provided by the three main guides) it becomes clear that explorer
and documentarist - who both provide separate narration - have mutually
unachievable aims, not least because Shah's Machiguenga lads are literally
weighed down by having to carry the film-making equipment while surviving
on supplies of Pot Noodle. This leads to all manner of friction, which
may or may not be partially staged (or at least heightened) for the benefit
of the audience: "I wanted us to endure hardship, because hardship
would look great on film," according to the director.
Even so, and
even during their angriest feuding, Shah and Flamholc make for excellent
company with which to tag along for a couple of hours. Shah's relentless
optimism convinces us - and his long-suffering fellow-travellers - that
Paititi is just beyond the next bend in the river, just behind the next
mountain. Though rather less intrepid, Flamholc is quite happy to be barrelled
along on his friend's infectious no-hanging-about energy. And so, despite
occasional misgivings, are we.
6th September,
2004
(seen 26th August : UGC Edinburgh : public show - Edinburgh
Film Festival)
click
HERE for our full coverage of the 58th Edinburgh Film Festival
by Neil
Young
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