During his 40-year filmmaking career, retired director Carroll Ballard choose the great outdoors as the settings for all but one (“Nutcracker: The Movie”) of his eight movies, including two Vietnam War-era documentaries (“Beyond This Winter’s Wheat” and “Harvest”) commissioned and produced by the U.S. Information Agency. “Duma” was Ballard’s final feature effort and, with the possible exception of “Never Cry Wolf” (1983), it was the finest of his career. Based on the children’s book “How it Was with Dooms” by Carol Cawthra Hopcraft and her son Xan, it was adapted for the screen by Carol Flint, Mark St. Germain, and Karen Janszen. In most instances, when a screenplay is penned by more than one writer—the Coen brothers, notwithstanding—the resulting final product is all over the place, but that is certainly not the case here. It Begs for Multiple Viewings Saddled by a pathetically inept and misrepresentative marketing campaign upon release, …