Nanook of the North

1920 in the Arctic, and Robert Flaherty, an explorer, has made a film about the Inuit people. He returns to the States, and his film negative is lost in a fire. Determined to not let his work go to waste, Flaherty returns to the Hudson Bay, handpicks the most popular Inuit around named Nanook, gets a few women and children to act as his family, and sets out to make a documentary about them. Flaherty is known as the "father of documentaries." With NANOOK OF THE NORTH he has a contrivance. It is a film that was staged, and yet its starkness makes it have the feeling of realism. Nanook and his counterparts live a primitive existence: this is fact. In one breathtaking scene, Nanook looks for a seal underneath the ice to kill. He knows that seals come up out of the water to take a breath every twenty minutes, and he has found the inch-wide hole that they use to breath. He waits above it with his harpoon, with only a few seconds to attack the great beast. Exhibiting man's struggle against nature, Nanook spears the seal and tugs and tugs as he wraps his end of rope around his body. If the seal beats him, and takes off, overpowers him, then Nanook will die. He will fall underneath the ice, plunge in, and drown. Here we see the worth of this film. Although Flaherty only arranged things so that he would be able to film a scene like this, the territory and the seal are not in on the contrivances or desires of the director. Nanook must actually defeat the seal, or die. Another breathtaking scene shows Nanook and his "family" as they build an igloo. They do so in under an hour. It is astounding to see this film. I imagine that Nanook and the Inuits like him are not very different from some of the earliest people on earth: utilizing primitive tools and their vast knowledge of the world they inhabit to survive against the elements.
Nanook of the North: ★★★1/2