Uncivilized (2019)
★★★ — Uncivilized (2019)
Uncivilized is a 2019 documentary from the small Caribbean island nation of Dominica, running at a trim 75 minutes and produced under the Studio Anansi banner. It sits in that particular corner of non-fiction filmmaking where one person, a camera and a fairly raw idea carry the whole weight of the picture. The premise is disarmingly simple: filmmaker Michael Lees, dissatisfied with the pace and noise of contemporary life, takes himself off into the Dominica forest with little more than basic survival equipment, some religious texts and a camera, hoping to find some answer to the question of what actually constitutes a good life. It is the kind of one-man-band project that can go either way, and the island setting itself is worth noting. Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic) is a relatively small, heavily forested island that has produced very little in the way of theatrical cinema, making even the existence of a feature-length documentary from there something of a notable event. For a sense of the island's thin but genuine film culture, it is worth looking at Nom Tèw (2009), another production from Dominica reviewed here.
What distinguishes Uncivilized from the usual survivalist fare is not the forest-dwelling itself but what interrupts it. In September 2017, Hurricane Maria made a direct landfall on Dominica as a Category 5 storm, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record, causing catastrophic destruction across the island. Lees was in the forest when the storm hit, sheltering in a palm leaf and bamboo hut. The film therefore becomes something rather different from the philosophical retreat it starts out as, pivoting into a document of a nation in crisis, with essential services gone and the forest itself reduced to wreckage. It is the kind of dramatic turn that no documentary producer could have scripted, and it gives the film a weight that purely self-directed survival projects rarely achieve. For context on how documentaries handle unexpected human and environmental stories, you might also look at Next Goal Wins (2014) and Ben Fogle and the Buried City (2023), two other documentary films covered on this blog.
As both director and sole on-screen subject, Michael Lees occupies an unusual position. There is no crew to fall back on, no narrator lending polish and distance, and no second camera to catch what the first one missed. The result is rough around the edges in places, but that roughness is part of the point. This is a personal document, and the lo-fi quality reinforces the sense of one man genuinely alone with his thoughts, his faith and then, abruptly, a natural catastrophe reshaping everything around him. It is a world away from slick, production-heavy adventure films, something more honest and more modest in its ambitions, if also more limited in its technical reach.
A-Z World Movie Tour Dominica This was a fantastic documentary by amateur filmmaker Michael Lees. He sets off into the jungle for 6 months in order to detach from civilization and find something within himself. It starts off feeling alot like Into the Wild and it almost feels like something Christopher McCandless would have made had he been in this age of technology. Then... all of a sudden... a category 5 hurricane absolutely decimates Dominica and the journey is cut in half. Now it's about returning to civilization and helping his family rebuild their homes. Really eye opening look into the effects of global warming and climate change.
That pivot from self-imposed solitude to communal survival is the thing that stays with me most. What begins as a personal, almost private question about how to live becomes, through no choice of anyone involved, a story about an entire community stripped back to the same question all at once. Climate change rarely hits home in documentary form quite like watching a real place, not a news package but a lived-in world, get taken apart in real time. It is raw in a way that polished, budget-heavy productions seldom manage. For a 75-minute film made by one person on a small island, it carries a surprising amount of genuine weight. Sometimes the simple idea, honestly followed, is more than enough.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2019 | Watched: 2025-06-10
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Uncivilized (2019) on YouTube
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