The Salton Sea is a relatively still body of water. Contrary to its name, it’s an artificial lake located in Southern California. But the government’s use of the lake as an atomic bomb testing site wreaked havoc on nearby communities, the effects of which are still felt by inhabitants today. Screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, “AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB, or: Looking for reflections in the toxic field of plenty” puts together perspectives of local residents to tell a story about the Salton Sea’s troubling environmental history.
The Salton Sea was a popular recreation destination in the 1950s. However, agricultural runoff and evaporation have led to a decrease in wildlife and poor air quality in recent years. The exploration of these environmental problems in “AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB” are two-fold. The toxins from atomic bombs dropped by the U.S. military led to environmental disaster, making certain plant and animal life unsustainable. On top of the negligent consequences of military-related land use, climate change has slowly decreased the water level. Both of these problems pose issues down the line for the Salton Sea since it will continue to become less sustainable for life, and it will dry up if nothing is implemented to combat the toxicity and falling water levels.
In most documentaries, the narrative direction does not solely depend on the editing of the film, but directors Lukas Marxt and Vanja Smiljanić explore the vast difference in experiences through the film’s editing. The audio and visual footage in “AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB” come primarily from interviews, in addition to some extra footage displaying the specific subjects the interviewees talk about. The footage speaks for itself — there’s no need to inject the voice of an external narrator into the mix, a commonality of many journalistic documentaries — when the people experiencing the Salton Sea can be that voice instead. One group of focus is the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, who are indigenous to the Martinez Canyon. In one scene, Marxt and Smiljanić highlight several tribe members performing a traditional bird song. The bird song asks the Creator to guide them back to the desert, which directly relates to the 1860s genocide after the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians and several other tribes were forced out of their homes by European settlers.
There are a couple of scenes when the non-interview footage lingers for an unexplained reason, such as footage of a cameraperson walking toward a replica of one of the atomic bombs — the only interjection of external narration that didn’t seem to have a clear purpose. However, there are other times where it perfectly frames the context of the situation. Marxt and Smiljanić also include footage of what appears to be sand on the shores of the Salton Sea, but is actually a build-up of dead bugs and creatures due to the shoreline’s toxicity. This footage lingering on the build-up of dead creatures worked well to emphasize the devastation of bomb testing on the local environment.
Additionally, Marxt and Smiljanić chose to intersperse interview footage throughout the film, rather than having one interview play after the next. On top of interviews with the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, we see how field workers on reservation land in the Coachella and Imperial Valleys deal with the consequences of these toxins on their farmland. We also learn about the timeline of U.S. military presence and the effects of climate change on the Salton Sea from local experts. This allows viewers to get a complete picture of how the perspectives of the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, the perspectives of field workers, the perspectives of other local experts and the history of the U.S. military are inherently interlinked, rather than seeing them from separate viewpoints. However, it was often frustrating to follow this style of interview footage due to a lack of overall context. It’s often hard to separate the different narratives from one another because it’s not always clear whether a specific shot is a continuation of a previous scene. It’s also hard to understand where the interviewee is coming from when not much about their background is explained aside from what they tell us.
Throughout these fragmented scenes, Marxt and Smiljanić present a clear dichotomy between the optimistic perspectives of the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians and the more resigned perspectives of local experts on the Salton Sea. One member of the tribe had a determined perspective with regards to the future, declaring that the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians will forever exist as protectors of the sea. In contrast, a local expert explains the situation in a matter-of-fact manner. He states that the government attempted to install a provision to prevent the falling sea levels, but it recently got struck down, so the Salton Sea is likely to disappear in the near future. From an outside perspective, there seems to be a reluctant acceptance and more neutral outlook on the ecological changes to the Salton Sea. However, the Salton Sea is the home of the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, and they will keep fighting to preserve it. Marxt and Smiljanić succeed in bringing both of these perspectives together to highlight the urgency of the worsening environmental crisis not only from outsiders, like the local experts, but also from the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, who will continue to reside near the Salton Sea regardless of the hardships that they endure.
Despite the focus on the bombing of the sea, the documentary doesn’t define the Salton Sea through this tragedy. Instead, it is dedicated to providing a deeper look at the history of the Salton Sea and how it continues to affect its inhabitants. The documentary’s title references Mau-Wal-Mah Su-Kutt Menyil, the autonym of the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, which translates to “among the palms, deer moon.” The deer moon refers to a moonlit place where the Cahuilla people used to hunt for deer. Among the rows of palm trees near the Salton Sea, there is a history much deeper than the surface-level fact that bomb testing occurred there, something that the audience would do well to remember.
Daily Arts Writer Kristen Su can be reached at krsu@umich.edu.
