Living Maya

The film “Living Maya” was an enlightening portrayal of what it is like to make an ethnographic documentary. The film was essentially a “making of” for the film itself where audience is able to see how the film makers chose their site, enter the field, and interact with the people they film. I really enjoyed seeing the behind the scenes work that goes into making a very low budget ethnographic film like this. It gave me insight into what really goes on and reminded me of what happens when anthropologists go out into the field to study other cultures.

The film makers had an idea of what kind of village they wanted to film, so they talked with their friends about the villages in the Yucatan. They then spent several weeks driving around to different villages to see which one was the best one. When they found the village they wanted to work in they gathered the men together (the women weren’t allowed to attend the meeting) and asked for permission to make a film there.

This reminded me a lot of when I went to Guatemala. The town that I studied in had BYU students coming there for 10 years. I was a pretty pampered anthropologist in that regard. The people knew what I was there for and were pretty willing to talk to me. The year I went however,the field facilitator put one student in a small, very remote town where no BYU students had ever stayed. Professor Hawkins went up there with the student and asked around if they would allow the student to stay. The family they talked to said that they would have to have a town meeting about it, but he could stay there in the meantime. A few days latter they came up to him and told him that he could stay.

I also really liked the part of the film where the women are talking about the filmmaker in the kitchen, with him right there. The women are speaking in Mayan so the filmmaker doesn’t know what they are saying, but someone went back and translated it and put in subtitles so the audience can tell what is going on. I know this happened to me everyday while I was in Guatemala. I was able to tell from my limited Maya capabilities a little of what was going on, but when I asked they would deny that they were talking about me. So I thought the film was very realistic with what it portrayed.