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Excellent but underrated film

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I saw this film many, many years ago and was waiting for it to make it to the IMDb, much less DVD. For a while it was possible to get a VHS copy from an address which was something like a car wash or auto parts store. It seemed to be truly lost, but now that it is on DVD, anyone interested in spiritual development, shamanism, tribalism or Mayan culture should get a copy. It is a tragedy that Klein seems not to have made anything else.The film itself may be hard to follow, in part because some things are not entirely tied up neatly at the end, but I can't say I found it anything except straight forward. The way the different characters carry themselves, their interactions within their cultural context, the visuals and the technology of traditional magic make this film compelling and memorable, almost a documentary.

Here goes. This film was shown outdoors, in the campground, during a mid-week evening break during the 1978 National Speleological Society convention in New Braunfels, Texas. Some local promoter offered this flick, because it was about 'caves'. It really isn't. It's about a drought, in a contemporary New World jungle community, and their attempts to end same. One young local villager shows his hi-tech readiness, as he owns a flashlight. Whoopee. This film played at Facets Multimedia in Chicago the following year, along with a review in the Chicago Reader which pretty much ripped it apart. Basically, following the customs of the society depicted, it doesn't make much sense. Interesting I guess, but, if it became a lost film, I wouldn't bother looking for it.

There is no Spanish usage here. The language of the villagers is Tzeltal. When the men of the village go on a short quest with a shaman into the Lacandon Jungle, you can hear Lacandon/Yucatec in greetings and interactions with local indigenous people.There were brief shots of Palenque too, as if they were near there while being deep in jungle.The actor playing the shaman has a classic Maya face. It is the sort that is on many ancient stelae. I fully expected to find that he had done other roles, but did not succeed in finding any such evidence. I found it annoying that the credits listed none of the Lacandons who were in the film.

Chac is one of the best films ever produced and distributed about the shamanism of an indigenous culture in conflict with the material/technological/monotheistic world. It is a small story with a grand statement and emotional impact.