Review: History comes to life with exquisite detail in Nimuendajú

Curt Unckel Nimuendajú was a German-born anthropologist whose life was centered on the study of the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon. From childhood, his imagination was captured by stories of the American West, and the native people who lived there. As a young adult, he moved to Brazil, and started living amongst various tribes, often being welcomed as a member of the family. In fact, his surname, which he officially adopted when he applied for Brazilian citizenship, was given to him by the Guaraní people. Nimuendajú means "the one who made himself a home." After leaning about his life in the beautifully detailed Nimuendajú, it's clear why this name was given to him, why it resonated with him. If anything, it makes me wonder it there's a variation of the word that could encompass many homes, because that could've been an even more apt name for the researcher.

I love when a movie like Nimuendajú is made using the medium of animation, because it isn't necessarily the most obvious route to go when telling the story of an early twentieth-century scientist's life and work. Movies like this are a great reminder that animation can be used to tell any kind of story, in any genre, with any tone. This story is quite a serious one, and quite a sad one. The plight of Indigenous communities tend to be full of hardship, persecution, violence. That's certainly true of those who live in Brazil. 

The situation was so dire during Nimuendajú's life that he worked with an extreme urgency, because he believed that the communities he loved and studied were on the brink of extinction. Faced by violence from white Brazilians, and riddled by alcoholism, poverty, and disease, it isn't hard to see why the scientist thought he was racing the clock to preserve the remnants of these cultures. He worked to record the customs, language, and artifacts of these tribes, building a huge library of information, photographs, and the like, and helping to build collections for museums back in Europe (at least in the film, all of the artifacts are willingly traded to him by various natives).

Watching his life and work, and hearing about his worries, made me think of how every generation thinks they might be witnessing the end of the world, or at least the ends of smaller worlds within our larger one. The text at the end of Nimuendajú carries an air of defiant celebration, like thank goodness he was wrong. Indigenous communities are strong and resilient (they have to be), and remain. Obviously, they still need to be protected and celebrated, and this film is a great reminder of that.

As a biopic, Nimuendajú doesn't necessarily delve deep, but as someone who had never heard of him before, I didn't find myself minding too much. Even just learning the facts of his life, and learning about some of the tribes he lived with, makes for a compelling watch. We don't get to know much of why he was so drawn to these communities beyond the seed of his childhood fascination, which bloomed into what can easily be called an obsession. He notes that all he wants to talk about is Indigenous communities, and he imagines it must drive his friends and family crazy. What makes him tick on a deeper level isn't really explored, but his actions are interesting to poke at even at a surface level.

I found myself grappling with what it meant for a white man to be integrating himself in these communities and trying to protect and preserve them. He clearly was working from a place of empathy and curiosity, and he was using his privilege to argue for justice in spaces where the natives couldn't safely go, but there's always the nagging question of: was he right to come into these spaces, and to make himself a part of these stories? I think the film lands pretty firmly on the side of "yes, he was heroic in doing this work," and I think I land there, too. But I'm glad the film doesn't make it a simple judgment call, instead wrestling with the optics and the simple (?) reality of his life.

For instance, part of becoming ingrained in these tribes was taking wives, which meant Nimuendajú had multiple wives, including one back home in Belém. Traveling so much means he doesn't spend much time with any of his wives, leading one of them to say he's just like every other white man. Thorny stuff, to be sure.

As a biopic, the film has a grounded visual approach, using some rotoscope animation on key frames and then using hand-drawn animation for the rest. It's a great choice, and the result is gorgeous. There's so much detail in every frame, with minute shifts in facial expressions and a sense of real weight to characters' movements. The flora and fauna of the world is wonderfully fleshed out, as well as all of the artifacts and objects. It feels like a labor of love, and a labor of preservation in and of itself. There are also a few transition scenes that break with realism that serve as sort of story buffers, awash in red and gray and black, that I found particularly lovely and memorable.

While Nimuendajú doesn't interrogate its protagonist too much, it's such a great choice for a subject, and presents its story so well, that the result is a compelling and poignant biopic all the same. While the film focuses on the accomplishments of the eponymous scientist, it's also very much a rallying cry around the plight of the Indigenous peoples of Brazil, and a celebration of their vibrant and varied cultures.