TV Reviews : ‘Bali’ on PBS: A Battle to Preserve Their Heritage

“Bali, Masterpiece of the Gods” (airing tonight at 8 on Channels 28, 50 and 15, and at 9 on Channel 24) is a pageant for the senses, a song for the spirit.

It’s also a very interesting, serious look at an island so exotic that most efforts to capture its essence become showcases for the glossy and the superficial.

There is a lot of gloss in this “National Geographic” special--there almost has to be in a show about a place where everyone is an artist--but writer-producer Miriam Birch has done an excellent job of exploring the underlying culture and religious rituals that bind this land of 2.5 million people.

As “Bali” clearly shows, the intertwining of religion, art and community is so strong that even the assault of the modern world--in the guise of tourists and technology--only serves to strengthen the timeless rituals of Balinese life. One example: Children learning to perform for tourists at a hotel are given strong reinforcement in their history while learning age-old rituals with dancing.

Two segments vividly show that, for the Balinese, art is an expression of profound religious belief. The first, a look at a rice farmer who is also a master dancer, shows dancing as an integral part of village life, as valued as tending crops. And a visit with a maker of incredibly expressive ritual wooden masks shows that there are two kinds of mask in Bali: The decorative one for sale to tourists “has no power,” while the spiritual one for personal use “has a soul.”

The tourism onslaught is increasing; last year, there were 400,000 travelers to this jewel in the Indonesian archipelago. In the face of 20th-Century temptations, the Balinese work to keep their culture strong. Let’s hope they succeed. It would be a shame to destroy a culture where a mask-maker can unself-consciously say, “Without art, people would not be normal.”