1922 narrative documentaryRating: 16/20
Plot: Anthropologist Robert J. Flaherty goes where the huskies go and avoids the yellow snow while filming an Eskimo family in their quest to survive in the harsh Canadian climate. The title pater familias hunts for walrus and seal, which the family devours raw, and builds an igloo. He also tries to eat a record.
The first feature-length documentary is a good one. The amount of staging makes this seem far from factual (in fact, Nanook's wife wasn't really his wife), but this still looks like an accurate depiction of what life in this particular brand of wild would be like. Of course, it's not like documentaries since Nanook have exactly been 100% objective. It's probably more exciting as a historical document than a movie, but there are some exciting moments--Nanook's struggles with a seal beneath the ice, the intricacies of building an igloo, Nanook molesting a walrus. I really like the scene where Nanook and his family are shown a phonograph. It's such an odd moment, one that arguably doesn't even need to be in the film, but the strange little detail adds some personality and makes Nanook really easy to like. He's also got these fuzzy pants that I'd like to buy, not only for myself but for my entire posse. Nobody's going to mess around with a gang in large fuzzy white pants. Flaherty wasn't exactly a filmmaker, but you wouldn't know it by watching this silent film. I expected shivering to get in the way of quality cinematography. I would have liked to see more of the Northern Canadian landscape, but the focus was kept on the family and their struggles with that landscape so I can forgive that.
Another Cory recommendation.
3 comments:
I keep thinking about checking this out... it's like yr reviews are looking over my shoulder at work and reviewing the DVDs I look extra long and hard at... on a different note the old station manager from PRA is doing sound for Robyn Hitchcock on WFMU tomorrow...
The fact that we find out before the movie starts that Nanook starves two years later added a lot of poignancy (?) to the movie. His struggle to keep a family and all of the dogs from starving made the film a tense experience and made Nanook's outlook more amazing. I loved the part where the whole family and a dog emerged from one canoe, and seeing their sleeping arangements. I also think you and your posse were made to wear polar bear fur chaps. A 16.
My reviews have nothing better to do than look over the shoulders of my readers.
Yeah, Cory, I liked that scene with the canoe. It was like they were clowns. I can't figure out how they all fit in there.
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