“Parasisi” is a quiet yet threatening documentary. Take the opening minutes in a tender moment with a father and child bathing at dusk in the river then a scene with some roughnecks unloading battered steel barrels from a truck onto the riverside. What is in the barrels certainly can’t be beneficial for the river. Threatening for sure.
The Lawa River borders Suriname and French Guyana and is home to approximately 2,500 Wayana People survivors of the diseases brought to them through Dutch and French goldminers in a gold rush starting in 1885 continuing today through Brazilian small time gold miners pumping an estimated 5,000-10,000 kgs of mercury into the Lawa River as a by product of gold mining. Mercury may cause severe brain damage and possible death for the unborn and young children.
The Lawa people call those who have swarmed into their lands parasisi translated into English as “intruders”. Gold miners mine gold and evangelists mine souls and both operate in the Lawa. In addition to these parasisi there are Dutch language teachers, French medical teams, researchers and foreign culture.
Mercury poisoning is the most physically dangerous intrusion a “gift” of the small time Brazilian gold miners as were the diseases brought into the Lawa during the 1885 gold rush which nearly eradicated the entire Wayana People.
This beautifully shot black and white documentary does not brandish a spiked club swinging about on the screen but lets the camera and the people tell the story many who don’t seem particularly well informed about the full nature of the assimilation, exploitation and interference they face. Perfect colonialism that is menacing their health and threatening the very existence of their culture.
You can watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJzq1Re42FI
Directed by Zaïde Bill and Sébastian Segers.
RKS Documentary Film Rating 79/100.
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