Nanook of the North.

Review #1232: Nanook of the North.

Cast: 
Allakariallak (Nanook), Alice Nevalinga (Nanook's Wife - the Smiling One), Cunayou (Nanook's Daughter), Allegoo (Nanook's Son), and Camock (Nanook's Cat) Directed by Robert J. Flaherty.

Review: 
Admittedly, this is a film I had been interested in covering for quite some time now. It isn't easy to justify watching a documentary when there are so many films out there for me to try to watch and cover. But in any case, I realized that the chance to cover a silent documentary (also known as Nanook of the North: A Story Of Life and Love In the Actual Arctic) like this could be a unique experience to cover, particularly one that stands high as one of the seminal films of the past century. It contains elements of re-staged events of drama (docudrama) that attempts to capture the struggle of an Inuk in the Canadian Artic, from his travels with family to hunting a walrus to building an igloo. Robert J. Flaherty had a curiosity that drove his childhood, in part because of his father's iron ore explorer background, working as a still-photographer in Toronto. Flaherty was commissioned by Sir William MacKenzie to examine the potential iron ore deposits on certain islands in the East Coast of Hudson Bay. He made four expeditions over the span of six years, most notably finding the Belcher Island archipelago in Hudson Bay (a re-discovery for which for which he was inducted into the Royal Geographic Society of England in 1914). On one of his trips, he brought a motion camera with him; he filmed 30,000 feet of film of the Inuit people over this time. A chance accident in 1916 involving a cigarette burning the negative meant the loss of his footage, which only inspired Flaherty to try again. He made his focus onto one Inuit family while trying to raise funds for filming, which took four years to do. The film itself depicts some events as reality despite being staged by Flaherty. Examples of this include Allakariallak hunting much in the same way of his ancestors instead of his traditional rifle, which had been common by this time. The igloo used for interior shots was a special three-walled one in order to help with lighting (along with the fact that making an igloo big enough for the camera to be included proved unfeasible).

Flaherty later described the food he had brought with him for filming, which contrasted with the food diet of his fellow Eskimos, later stating: "My food outfit comprised one hundred pounds of pork and beans which had been cooked in huge kettles at my post and then put into a canvas bag and frozen. These beans chopped out with an axe from the frozen mass along with dried fruit, sea biscuit, and tea comprised my food supply. Nanook and his companions' diet was seal and walrus augmented by tea and sugar from my supply and, most important of all, tobacco." With this film, he combined documentary subjects with a film narrative, showing the calamity of nature and the plight of a community to survive despite great odds against them. The walrus fight is a sight to behold. Seeing someone attempt to land a harpoon onto an over 2,000 pound animal with tusks locked in battle - that is something you just can't replicate today, unless you happen to be in a situation like that yourself. Seeing the construction of an igloo is still a sight to see regardless of what one might know about its structure modification. This is a film that is a product of the time, where the rules of what makes a documentary and what you could and couldn't really do with depicting staged events as authentic weren't as prominent as they are now. At least one can't say Flaherty put his crew in complete danger or overbears on depicting a culture as they are, instead finding them remarkable to view through the lens of film. It is the courage one sees in these individuals such as Allakariallak that makes this a fascinating film to view for its 79 minute run-time. One gets a feel for what made people like him attempt to endure here despite the chills of the North riding through the day and night, for which Flaherty got to experience this first hand through production of this film. How can one not enjoy what they see on screen, a film that depicts exactly it promises to depict on screen with such conviction and such enduring power to this very day? Perhaps it is not everything one would desire in a documentary depicting people of a culture, but it surely stands tall for its entertainment value and its ambition from Flaherty and his crew to make a worthwhile experience for any sort of curiosity. In an age where looking at other cultures and views on the Internet increases by the decades, Nanook of the North endures in the scope of curiosity of film as a well-deserved pioneer of its time.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.