You are here:

Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale

Name: Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale
Director: Laurie Gwen Shapiro, David Shapiro
Released: 2000
Duration: 93 min

Representation Score

5.9/10

Fair

2000

Director

Laurie Gwen Shapiro, David Shapiro

Runtime

93 minutes

Average Rating

No ratings yet

New Showbiz Analysis

The documentary succeeds by dismantling the typical 'explorer' cliché, replacing it with a nuanced study of cultural immersion. It prioritizes non-Western perspectives and challenges the dominance of Western social structures. While the film excels in racial and cultural representation, it lacks specific identity-based markers for LGBTQ+ or disability categories. The focus remains on the psychological journey of a man navigating the tension between two worlds. Ultimately, the film serves as a powerful critique of modern capitalist expectations, favoring a more fluid and relativistic view of human identity and belonging.

Watch this, not that →

Category Breakdown

Does Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale have LGBTQ+ representation?

Fair

The film explores themes of extreme social non-conformity and the rejection of Western norms. However, it lacks explicit depictions of LGBTQ+ identities or intimate relationships between LGBTQ+ characters.

How does Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale portray gender?

Fair

The documentary disrupts the traditional masculine adventurer archetype. It focuses on Schneebaum’s vulnerability and emotional complexity rather than a standard conquest of nature.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale?

Good

Indigenous Amazonian tribes are central to the narrative rather than mere background. The film grants these non-Western groups a significant role in driving the story and depth in shaping the protagonist's identity.

How does Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale represent religion and culture?

Excellent

The film critiques Western institutional norms by framing civilization as something to be deconstructed. It embraces moral relativism through a non-Western understanding of existence.

Does Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale include disability representation?

Minimal

There is no evidence regarding the portrayal of physical or neurodivergent disabilities within the film.

Present on Screen

Provides significant platforming to indigenous Amazonian tribes as central characters.
Challenges traditional male clichés by highlighting emotional vulnerability and complexity.
Offers a profound critique of Western institutional norms and societal structures.

Limited or Absent

Lacks explicit representation or markers for LGBTQ+ identities.
Provides no visible evidence regarding the portrayal of disabilities.

Official Synopsis

In 1955, Tobias Schneebaum disappeared into the depths of the Peruvian Amazon. He had no guide, no map, and only the vaguest of instructions: Keep the river on your right. A year later Schneebaum emerged from the jungle…naked, covered in body paint, and a modern-day cannibal. Titled after Schneebaum’s 1969 cult classic memoir about his formative experiences living in the Amazon, Keep The River On Your Right is the extraordinary stranger-than-fiction story of Schneebaum’s return to the jungle, 45 years after his original visit, to reunite with the very tribesmen he loved and who gave him nightmares for nearly half a century. A deeply affecting and searing portrait, sibling filmmakers Laurie and David Shapiro capture a man in utter conflict, a fearless adventurer, and one of the most charming, enigmatic, and perplexing men ever captured on screen.

How are these scores produced? →