The Island of Yesterday: Sumatra, Dutch West Indies (1920)
1920 · Ephemeral film · 9 min
Synopsis
Goodyear's own film about its rubber plantations on the island of Sumatra, depicting Sumatra's culture in a highly patronizing and racist fashion.
Uploader's description on archive.org
Details
- Running time
- 9 minutes
- Collection
- Prelinger Archives
Subjects on the Internet Archive
- Indonesia
Reviews on the Internet Archive
★★★★ · Thank God's Country for Goodyear! · Spuzz · 2003-09-08
This very curious film details a visit to the Goodyear plant in the Dutch West Indies. While praising the advanced technology of the Goodyear plant, the narration of the film just can't stop talking about the 'coolies' and how primitive this island is compared to 'God's Country'. Even the entertainment is poo-poo'd, when the visitors were prepared for 'mysterious Oriental entertainment', they get a puppet show. Somewhat barbaric and elitish, this film IS quite fascinating and comes highly reccomended!
★★★ · Javanese arts in Island of Yesterday · Glasgow · 2003-04-29
This Goodyear short is typical of industrial films from the East Indies, but contains at least one scene which will be of interest to scholars of Javanese performing artists, showing 'coolies' (actually migrant plantation workers) from Java performing both wayang wong (a form of dance drama) and wayang kulit (shadow puppet theatre). It is well known that Javanese living in Sumatra brought their indigenous arts with them (some of their descendents still practise them to date), but pre-war footage is very rare.