Nanook of the North

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Simon T Robert Flaherty's celebrated documentary simply chronicles the hard life of an Inuit family, concentrating particularly on the father as he tracks and kills salmon, seal, whatever his family and huskies need to sustain them in such harsh surroundings. Flaherty introduces him to recorded sound via an early gramophone and his instinct is to bite it. Nanook builds an igloo and cuts an ice window. And throughout - despite everything - they never stop smiling. Genuinely educational. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 06/05/25 Full Review Nick M While the earliest films can only really be classified as documentary in nature, Robert J. Flaherty is generally considered the "father" of the genre because of this very film. That reputation is an earned one. Despite its faults, Nanook of the North is nothing short of a triumph. It is awesome and inspirational, informative and entertaining all at once. Flaherty has been criticized for scripting many of the events seen in the film, and for artificially presenting his Inuit subjects as more primitive than they were by the early 20th century. The most egregious example of this is probably the scene, early in the film, in which the family visits a white trader. The man shows Nanook a gramophone, and we are told that this is the first time he has ever seen such a device. This was far from true, but to further drive home his "otherness" he was instructed to put a record in his mouth and bite it for the benefit of "civilized" audiences. Even the name of the man whom we follow across the icy desert has been changed: Nanook was in fact named Allakariallak, which Flaherty didn't feel was very marketable. For all of that, it is difficult to view this picture as anything but a revelation. Yes, Allakariallak hunted large prey primarily with rifles rather than the weapons of his ancestors, but that doesn't temper our amazement as we watch him successfully hunt a fully grown walrus with nothing but a harpoon. Falsely presenting the family as on the verge of starvation in order to drive home the imperative of capturing a seal does not make his struggle to pull it from the ice any less riveting. Knowing that the scenes from "inside" the igloos are actually cleverly staged outdoor shots doesn't change the fact that my mouth was agape while watching the family quickly and efficiently build one from scratch, or that I laughed incredulously as he expertly put in an ice "window" for internal illumination. With the exception of the trader scene, all of the other deceptions provide opportunities to demonstrate how the Inuit lived for millennia. Moreover, they serve to highlight the incredible talents of this man as a positive representative at a time when native peoples were still largely viewed as savage on one hand, and butts of the joke on the other. As we watch Nanook we come to two inescapable conclusions: the adaptations employed to survive in this desolate environment, harsh beyond our conception, are ingenious in the extreme; and were we tasked with surviving in similar circumstances we would not last a single day. Is this pure documentary? No, it is not. But it does manage to capture the indomitable spirit of this man and his family who, even though they are living in one of the most brutal climates on our planet, are still shown playing and enjoying one another's company. In fact, those are some of the most striking images. Story tellers are always attempting to construct fictional characters who embody the most admirable aspects of humanity. The most inspirational of these stories, where art successfully imitates life, are able to capture some shard of human truth that, if we are receptive, might illuminate a forgotten recess of our soul and remind us of who we are, and of what we are capable of. We need these stories because real life is ever so much messier and wearisome than fiction. Real life heroes exist, but perhaps only in a certain light, and usually only for a fleeting moment of time. We know that at the core of the story of Hercules there is a real man, or that it at least drew from the deeds of actual men, who grew into a mythology. The evolution of that story, however, and the feelings that it evokes, are so removed from reality that it is difficult to find ourselves within it. By contrast, Nanook immortalizes the awesome abilities of an actual person. Moreover, in some small way the deeds of Allakariallak bear witness to the craftiness and skill of our own ancestors from whom many of us, at least in Western culture, are far removed. To paraphrase Hamlet: "What a piece of work is man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable... The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals." Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/13/25 Full Review ashley h Nanook of the North is an okay documentary. I liked learning about the life in the Arctic Circle. I thought the subject matter (the Inuits) was somewhat interesting. It was okay but not a favorite. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member A groundbreaking film for the time. It's probably the first ever documentary and it doesn't hold much back for the time it was made. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/02/22 Full Review georgan g This was amazing considering when & how it was made. Seeing how these indigenous survived in the Arctic was fascinating. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review dave s In light of the fact that Nanook of the North was shot a century ago, before there were any accepted rules for documentary films, some of the excesses and shortcomings can certainly be excused, to a degree. While some scenes run on far too long (sledding through the ice flow) and others have a strangely Chaplin-like comedic feel to them (Nanook trying to drag the seal through the hole in the ice), the film remains an interesting examination of a family surviving the harshest elements imaginable in the difficult terrain of northern Quebec. Despite the fact the many of the scenes are blatantly staged, one has to be appreciative of the fact that the film gives the opportunity to glimpse into a world that few of us will ever experience first-hand. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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