BITTER HONEY # 9

10:30, Tuesday 16th June, Cinema 1

Director/Anthropologist: Robert Lemelson, UCLA
Year of Release: 2014
Duration: 82 mins
Country of Production: USA
Location: Indonesia
Ethnic Group: Balinese
Language: Indonesian, Balinese, English with English subtitles

Bitter Honey provides an experience-near account of polygamy in Bali, illustrating how kinship organization, gendered systems of power, social norms, and spiritual beliefs infuse and inform the romantic relationships and domestic affairs of three families. Capturing Balinese polygamy across multiple generations during a time of broad social change and national reform, the film documents traditional support for practice, contemporary ambivalence, and recent legislative interventions. With candid interviews, rich ethnographic observation, and an original score, Bitter Honey is at once a significant contribution to the ethnographic archive on contemporary polygamy and a model of new methods in visual psychological anthropology.

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