Samenvattingen(1)
Nanook and his family typify Eskimo life in the Arctic. Their continuous search for food necessitates their nomadic life. In the summer they journey to the river to fish for salmon and hunt walrus. In the winter they often approach starvation before any food is found. At night the entire family assists in building an igloo, then crawl under fur robes to sleep, using their clothes for pillows. In the morning the quest continues. (officiële tekst van distribiteur)
(meer)Recensie (4)
Surprisingly, my favorite version of the film is the hybrid version with a spoken commentary or a commentary that reads the intertitles with reasonable intonation. The story of the Nanook family and their trials and tribulations was as valid then as it is now. The father takes care of the family, the family helps out here and there, and the experience from the technical progress can be fun. The most adorable thing is of course the construction of the new igloo, which includes a window made of worked ice. Meanwhile, the kids were sledding, and there is a little hut for the dogs. It's nice that the forefather of the modern documentary is such a nice film.
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What I like about Nanook from the North is its unpretentious and unaffected humane dimension. The respect and good intentions with which Flaherty approached the project are very much evident, i.e. to understand the needs of Eskimo life and to present them in the most authentic form to the civilized world. It would have worked even better if the episodic action had been formed into a more coherent cinematic story, which wouldn't have been such a problem given the staged scenes, but even as a probe into another world framed by both basic animal motivations and the most transparent form of unadulterated humanity, this feature-length documentary still makes a full and timely impression nearly a century later.... 85%
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Nanook of the North is a documentary with everything - beautiful shots of nature, animals and culture, plus (unspoken) commentary to keep the viewer in the loop. After watching it, I was enriched with much knowledge of Eskimo hunting and "architecture" (igloos), so I am satisfied. And I have to say, the dogs (or wolves, who knows) were miserable, so I'm not surprised that they occasionally lost their nerve and just fought. A solid film, and it's a "shame" that it was made in the silent era, because after all, the spoken word is important in documentaries (at least for me).
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One of the first documentaries ever created. Nanook of the North garnered quite a bit of praise, especially because the camera wasn't just a passive recording tool; the man behind it also coordinated the scenes. It's partially staged because Flaherty aimed to capture compelling shots. Since he had burned his previous material, which amounted to hours of footage, he didn't want to film anything that wouldn't be perfect for him. And in a way, it is perfect. It’s interesting for its time, sometimes raw in what we see and feel, and the scenes can imprint themselves in your memory, but most importantly, they present the lives of those depicted. You believe this is how they live, and you realize you don't want to live like that. It’s a powerful documentary that definitely surprises with the quality of its imagery even after more than 90 years.
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