In August, 1975, Papua New Guinea celebrated its independence after one hundred years of colonial occupation. This colonization, first by the Germans and then the Australians, left the country a strange melange of tribal customs and westernized aspirations. Through witty and extraordinary juxtapositions, O'Rourke captures the wildness of Independence Day in a country that has gone from head-hunting to democracy in less than a century. One telling sequence has bare-breasted tribal women heading for the big city while a radio broadcast explains the formal attire preferred at official events. In another, urbanites with their fashionable "afros" disco-down to American music while in the Highlands traditional chants, sung in Motu, crackle over an open fire. Using music, radio broadcasts, interviews and a store house of documentary footage, O'Rourke's crazy portrait seems to be everywhere at once: Prince Charles' ceremonious arrival occurring in the same moment that Highlanders indulge in canoe races. And to its credit, the documentary refrains from any all-knowing narrator, instead conveying its interpretation through the sights and sounds of the New Guinea culture itself. The skillful and often humorous editing of vividly handsome images becomes the perfect analog of O'Rourke's subject: provoking and exuberant, Yumi Yet has the nervous joy of a new found freedom. -Steve Seid