“MANA” is the incredible documentary by Jacques NAVARRO-ROVIRA, devoted to this notion so dear to Polynesians and yet not so easy to explain, to illustrate. “MANA” lifts part of the veil and it’s on Polynésie the 1st on Wednesday July 27 at 8:15 p.m.!
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Published on July 24, 2022 at 3:26 p.m.,
updated on July 24, 2022 at 3:27 p.m.
The concept of Mana being if not very abstract, at least very “intellectual”, the challenge is not so much to talk about it, but to “show” it. How ? We have chosen to “incarnate it”, because as Hiriata Millaud writes:
“It inhabits, animates, heightens, ennobles, transcends all things, all beings, all elements, all matter, and in all dimensions.”
Thus, it inhabits (geographical) places, materials (earth, stone, water, plants, air, fire…), objects made by man and living beings, men or animals. Thus, as in a “casting” of actors, we will identify some of them, the most “significant”, living or not, and they will begin to live (for the “non-humans”) and speak to us. We will give them “life”, we will give them a “role” in this film.
What will it be? It will be to tell us their story, to each one, the how and the why, they are invested with this Mana, the legends which run about them, what they do or undo, because let’s not forget:
“It annihilates, destroys, ruins, annihilates, also, until the last vital vibration. It is seductive, bewitching, bewitching, intoxicating, fascinating. It is frightening, dangerous, devouring, fatal, fatal. In it watches this original duality of life and death”.