looking for the title of this movie... probably made in the early
1990's. a long movie, possibly 3-4 hours long.

it was about a drug addict (a junkie) low class native american guy
who has no dignity or pride in his identity. he goes on a trip to
south america with a bunch of explorer or academics. they are
exploring an area of south america that was not tainted by white
civilization. and one day, he just decides to join the south american
tribe, so he flies in a small plane to the area where the tribe is
living. he jumps out of the plane with a parachute and then lands in
the village.

he becomes a member of the tribe. he transforms himself from a junkie,
low class american guy into a dignified tribal warrior. he learns
their language and customs. gets a wife... then one day he bumps again
into a white woman who was part of the original expedition that he
followed at the start of the movie. he kisses her (because she is
completely naked; she was relaxing somewhere after taking a bath in
the stream or something) and incidentally she had the flu.

then because he was sexually aroused, he went back to his village and
starts making out with his wife and consequently, his wife caught the
flu. then the flu spread over the entire village, since they had no
immunity to it. a significant part of the village was dying.

he contacts the expedition team, asking for pills for the flu to cure
the tribe. the white people tell him: who are you fooling? youre not
actually one of them, even if you are wearing their costumes, etc. and
so they tried to blame him for spreading the flu. he said that he
still had to get the medicine and cure them, so he took the medicine
and went back to the tribe. by this time he is disillusioned about his
identity and realises that he is not one of them...

i dont remember the conclusion of the movie. this is most of the plot,
but i dont remember everything obviously.

i would love to see this film again, but i am having a lot of trouble
using the search engine to figure out the title. i hope someone can
help me!

thanks so much!

Hi Banchan,

At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) 

" Meanwhile, Lewis Moon (Tom Berenger), a Mission trained North
American Indian, and his sidekick Wolf (Tom Waits), are stringers for
the Government, being used surreptitiously to open up the Niaruna
preserve to commercial exploitation. Moon, however, the first of his
tribe to go to University, realizes that he has become spiritually
bankrupt. Civilization has taken from him all that gave his life
meaning. He resolves to parachute among the Niaruna (whom he regards
as his brothers) in order to regain his soul.
...The tribe also receive several gifts from Moon, the most important
being influenza, which he carries without knowing it."
source: epinions.com
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-66E9-4BF2AA2-398223C4-prod6

See also: Internet Movie Databse
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101373/

VHS from Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6302359848/

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search strategy:
google groups: movie "south american" tribe "the flu"

I hope this helps.

:D