Get Reel: cinema as window to the world

"It's only a movie." This is a phrase I've heard on more occasions than I care to remember, usually in the context of someone dismissing the idea that films can be anything more than entertaining fluff.

The way I see it, however, is that a cinematic work can be a window into another society or culture, a work of art and even educational - with my experience of having viewed several films in classrooms adding strength to this line of argument.

In many universities in the US, it almost seems like a rite of passage for students taking introductory sociocultural anthropology courses to be treated to a screening of a 1976 ethnographic film documenting cultural creativity among the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea.

Gary Kildea and Jerry Leach's Trobriand Cricket: An Ingenious Response to Colonialism is a fascinating and fun watch, and introduces viewers to a brand of cricket far removed from the one played on the pitches of England, India and Pakistan.

Yet, their version does have its origins in the game that British missionaries brought to that part of the Trobriand Islands. The film is also good for driving home various anthropological lessons, including ones about cultural diversity and the ability of different cultures to adapt foreign practices.