Cheap Keep the River on Your Right - A Modern Cannibal Tale (DVD) (David Shapiro (II), Laurie Shapiro) Price

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Customer Reviews of Keep the River on Your Right - A Modern Cannibal Tale

good enough to own
I felt this was an extremly satisfying movie to see. If felt very complete. You can read elsewhere that the directors drug a reluctant 79 year old Schneebaum back to what was left of his past. It's the real surprises that add to an already great doc and subject. As the subject of the film, Mr. Shneebaum is a facinating person. Your first perception of him in the begining is of an elderly New Yorker that would seem to look out of place anywhere outside of Manhattan. You come to learn that his perception of the world around him and acceptance of the moment enable him to travel freely into places where western explorers only venture with several weeks worth of supplies. This man did it with canvas deck shoes, a t-shirt, and shorts. <
> Possibly becouse of his unconventional acceptance of the obviuos, he is able to relate to the indiginous peoples of New Guinea and Peru. <
> Though he protests searching further for people and villages that must not have survived, the directors push him forward; and to great reward. They actually find some of the people he wrote about. This finally gives legitamacy to his books which have been long critisied for actually have ever happened. The satisfaction of seeing him find the people he thinks must have been long dead is akin to finally seeing an alien in a UFO documentary. <
> Another unexpected surprise is the almost chance meeting of a long lost lover that he had said goodbye to for the last time many years ago. This presents an amazingly touchig situation where Shneebaum has to once again say goodbye for the final time as both are in their late years. <
> Footage of interveiws from the 60's - 70's realy drive this film home. Chauncey talk show hosts seem to dismiss this person who has done something few people have, instead obcessing on his dismissal of social morays and acceptance of living with and approaching people on their terms. Every interveiwer seems to miss the point over and over again, at times it seems like Shneebaum who answers questions with a buddhist like calmness is the only sane person on stage. <
> If you are looking for a movie about cannibalism or homosexuality, this is not it. These two things have about as much relevence to the movie as what day of the week he was born on. See this movie to see a refreshing look at people and the impact of westernism. If you want to laugh you will laugh, if you want to cry you will cry. If you want to be rightous and indignant than you will be afforded that chance as well.

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Interesting If Somewhat Aimless
This interesting if somewhat aimless and meandering documentary takes us into the life of Tobias Schneebaum, an openly gay artist, anthropologist, and author who spent a year in his early career with a tribe of cannabalistic Peruvian natives. Now well into his 70's, Mr. Schneebaum is convinced by a group of independent filmmakers to return to the jungle and see if anything of this once interesting tribe still exists. <
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>Juxtaposed alongside this story is the life of Mr. Schneebaum, showing his family, his art, and his brief shot into the Hollywood spotlight after the news of his tasting of human flesh comes out. <
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>Some of the filming of this documentary is startling. Seeing Peruvian ruins and the amazing rainforests were certainly spectacles to be reckoned with. But the off-beat glimpses into cannibalism were so short and unengaging that I felt the title of the film to be misleading ("Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale"). The film is really about Tobias Schneebaum and, to a very large extent, his sexual preferences and how they mirrored some of the Peruvian tribes. <
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>A more appropriate title would've been "The Life and Times of Tobias Schneebaum".

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A GOOD STORY TELLER...but a fib
I was left hungry for more substance from this documentry but realized there was no more. "Mr. Scheenbaum is articulate and witty and a good storyteller" returning to the Peruvian Amazon to find the cannibals he once knew...but there are no cannibals in Peru or anywhere esle in the world. The idea that this foreigner went to a country where he knows nothing of it's culture and assumes so much is not a surprise but the fact that he is promoting these fibs is sad. Cannibalism exists in films like Tarzan and Romancing The Stone or Indian Jones tales...these are western fabrications. I am from Peru and knows very well the researched facts. I also know that in order to preserve sacred knowledge some tribes have been known to miss-direct outsiders so that they assume a false insight when in reality they are not <
>learning anything sacred at all. <
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>there is nothing primitive nor exotic about Peruvians living in the Amazon. But it is always the need to asume this when foreign to different cultuures-The word modern was created to assume everything else to be primitive...it is used as a higher archy similar to high art and low art...primitive art is low while contemporary art is high art.... <
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>I don't suggest this video to anyone.....I would suggest The well researched book FLASH OF THE SPIRIT by Robert Farris Thompson. <
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>"Mr. Scheenbaum is a good storyteller" but not a true story!