Sky (1988)

In the midst of the Brazilian jungle, near the mountains separating the Amazon River from Bolivia lies the Xingu, a region unknown to outsiders as recently as twenty years ago. The Xingu creation myth is the subject of this first feature by Paula Gaitan, who shows how well she has learned the lessons of cinema nôvo. Neither documentary nor fiction-and still less an ethnographic film-it's best described as an "image poem" about the quarup ritual. Sky depicts a culture thousands of years old still living according to its own legends: the hero Mavutsinim was the first to learn how to revive the dead, by chanting songs before wooden trunks (quarups) decorated and painted with images of the dead. Resurrection could only take place if this magical practice remained secret. But men betrayed their promise and tried to discover Mavutsinim's secret. From that day forth the dead have been unable to return to life. Today those whose dead are honored must remain in mourning for an entire year, not participating in any tribal activity. Then they are led to the center of the village for a symbolic purifying bath where their bodies are made up to mark the end of mourning. The next day the quarup trunks are thrown into the river which transports the dead to a new existence in another world.