One girl’s haunting photo . . . and a snapshot of sickening destruction
Chris PACKhAM spoke frankly and thoughtfully about his autism in a recent documentary. his condition, Asperger’s syndrome, got only a passing mention during In Search Of The Lost Girl (BBC2) but without it, this unique one-off investigation into the plight of a threatened tribe could not have been made.
The naturalist was fixated on memories of a trip to indonesia 20 years ago, when he met a family of hunter-gatherers leading a life little changed since prehistoric times, deep in the sumatran rainforest.
he took photographs and had never forgotten one portrait, of a solemn, sad-eyed girl aged seven or eight. ‘This picture haunts me, it’s so, so magical,’ he said.
intense memories are a trait of Asperger’s syndrome, as is a tendency to become fixated on a detail. so, too, is a need to understand the world through that single detail.
Packham hit upon the idea that if he could find the girl — now a woman in her late 20s, if she was alive at all — he would discover whether primitive indigenous tribes have any hope of surviving in the modern world.
so, with the reality-defying determination that is yet another common habit of Asperger’s, he set off for the indian Ocean.
This was not a happy film. Packham wanted to be upbeat: he went fishing with a veteran hunter who had cannily turned himself into a bit of a tourist attraction, and befriended everyone he met. it was obvious this tropical island had cast a spell on him.
But the story he uncovered was appalling. The jungle had been razed for oil palm plantations, with bulldozers destroying the rainforest at the rate of 200 football pitches an hour.
And the girl’s family had been slaughtered, two years after Packham photographed them — ambushed and killed by robbers.
A sliver of hope remained. No one remembered a young girl being among the dead.
Thanks to persistent searching, Packham tracked her down: she and her three children were living in a cluster of tents with her inlaws, in an oil palm clearing.
her name was Bunga Mawar, which means roseflower in the language of the nomadic Orang rimba people. At first, she hid from the cameras, holding up a cotton sarong to shield herself.
reluctantly, she was coaxed into view, and finally she gave a halfsmile, as she showed the photograph of herself as a child to her daughter. she said nothing.
Packham had yearned to find this young woman. Given the tragedy that had befallen her entire family 18 years ago, it is not surprising that she did not seem glad to be found.
At the polar opposite of the TV entertainment scale, All Together Now (BBC1) is the Beeb’s third attempt to replace its hit song contest, The Voice, which has decamped to iTV.
This time, 100 judges cram into a giant Celebrity square grid, with former spice Girl Geri at the centre.
Comedian rob Beckett scoots along the boxes between songs, trying to interview them. he looks like an usherette struggling to sell ice-cream.
Every song, whether it’s pop, West End musical or even opera, ends up sounding the same — middle-of-the-road karaoke, bordering on the football chant.
Everybody pretends to be having a wonderful time, but between songs the show drags terribly, with forced conversation and scripted asides.
There’s no shortage of star quality among the judges, who go by monikers such as Mr Fabulous and the soul Man. But the music is pap from the sausage factory.