''Ten Thousand Years Older'' is a 2002

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with un ...

about the Amondauas (Uru Eus) people of

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. The ten-minute film was produced and included as part of the ''

Ten Minutes Older ''Ten Minutes Older'' is a 2002 film project consisting of two compilation feature films titled ''The Trumpet'' and ''The Cello''. The project was conceived by the producer Nicolas McClintock as a reflection on the theme of time at the turn of th ...

'' project, released in the collection ''The Trumpet''.

Synopsis

The film opens with

stock footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock ...

of the Amondauas'

first contact First contact may refer to: *First contact (astronomy), the moment in astronomical transit when the apparent positions of the two bodies first touch *First contact (anthropology), the first meeting of two cultures previously unaware of one another ...

with modern Brazilians in 1981. Herzog states that they had previously only a "stone age existence", with no knowledge of

metalworking Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale ...

. Within several years, the majority of the tribe had been wiped out, most killed by

chicken pox Chickenpox, also known as varicella, is a highly contagious disease caused by the initial infection with varicella zoster virus (VZV). The disease results in a characteristic skin rash that forms small, itchy blisters, which eventually scab ...

and the

common cold The common cold or the cold is a viral infectious disease of the upper respiratory tract that primarily affects the respiratory mucosa of the nose, throat, sinuses, and larynx. Signs and symptoms may appear fewer than two days after exposu ...

. Herzog visits the tribe twenty years after their first contact. He discusses the elders' opinions on their new life, as well as the children's. The elders long for their previous lives as jungle warriors, while the children are embarrassed by their parents and want to live as modern Brazilians.

References

2002 films Anthropology documentary films 2002 short documentary films Indigenous peoples in Brazil {{ethnography-stub