Strong and Moving!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Nanook of the North is a 1922 silent documentary film, directed and produced by Robert J. Flaherty. Nanook of the North depicts the life of an Inuit family living near Hudson Bay in Quebec, Canada. The documentary takes us through various events that Inuits deal with in everyday life, such as hunting, dwelling and scaling the cold, barren Arctic wasteland. Nanook of the North shows us the hardships and constant fight for survival in the wilderness and shows us a very unique society these types of people live in. Flaherty's camera-work is magnificent, even in the cold plains of the Arctic, the documentary runs smoothly and feels crisp and perfected with a beautiful composition of classic melodies to break the silence and add tension when necessary. While the film runs smooth and does its purpose from a filmmaking point of view perfectly, Nanook of the North has at times been panned for being staged and forced in its production. Many claim is portrays a false image of Inuit life during its time, as many advancements had taken place in Inuit culture at the time of filming. Even names and events were faked to seemingly add drama and suspense. This realisation has often deterred many from the film, despite Flaherty claiming his intention was to portray traditional life of the Inuit people before Western influence. Overall, Nanook of the North is a hugely influential docudrama film with an intriguing look into traditional Inuit life, with beautiful harmonious melodies and crisp, clear camera-work, a hugely interesting and enjoyable film, with a slight sense of unfortunate doubt due to the controversies surrounding its production. 9/10

I found this film electrifying until, in reading more about it, I learned that some of the scenes were staged for dramatic effect - that Nanook, in the scene in which he bites on the record as though he hasn't seen one is really mocking us, that the Inuk use spears when in fact they hunted with guns, and that the race to construct an igloo at the end of the film were all staged. I found this sad. I don't think it completely devalues the movie though. Director Robert Flaherty still spent a great length of time with the people with whom he worked and we see a culture and a way of life that we would otherwise know nothing of. The shots of the family, the revelation about how to fit multiple people in a canoe, the disclosure of how to make an igloo, and the use of furs are all fascinating. I was sad to learn that Flaherty staged scenes for dramatic effect but this doesn't completely devalue this film. We see a lot of unvarnished glimpses of the spartan life which the Inuk undoubtedly lived. For that, I am profoundly grateful. I found this terrible and thought that it was a terrible manipulation of circumstances for dramatic ends. It's enough for me to rate this movie a significant amount lower. That said, it is very interesting.

Robert Flaherty is one of the more noted documentarians in the history of film. It is not without some concentration (ironically maybe) to watch his most well-known work, Nanook of North, which is as much documentary as it is almost the very first widely seen "Home movie". There's no narration aside from the several title cards listing the obvious things that Nanook and his family/tribe are doing in the arctic. Therefore this is much more of a visual kind of documentary, not as outrageous and experimental as those of Dziga Vertov of the same period (using what camera equipment available, shooting seemingly on the fly), but with a distinct view on what life is usually like for these people. We basically see them doing very elementary tasks, more based on living day-to-day in this harsh climate than anything overly dramatized. That all of the scenes are really 'staged' (and, apparently, it's not even Nanook's real wife) doesn't deter the viewer from what is being shown. It's like a mix of the objective and subjective- objective in the sense that 'this is what it is, the Eskimos hunting for food, raising their children, making their shelter in igloos, and making trips to ensure their survival'. Subjective in that Flaherty's camera is creating a specific view of these people, their faces captured memorably in the scratchy print of the film. In a way it's also like the first, and perhaps more groundbreaking, of the lot of nature documentaries to follow over the years, though to a primitive extreme.In all, Nanook of the North is meant to above all show the versatility of these people, both the physical nature (i.e. hunting the seal, which is the most exciting in the film) and the nature of the spirit of these people, living this way as a cycle over and over again.

This is a fascinating documentary from Robert Flaherty, a very prolific director of early documentaries. He follows the adventures of the Eskimo Nanook, and we get to see what life was like for the Eskimo in the early 20th Century as we watch Nanook with his family, hunting for food, and building igloos.This is really amazing stuff for 1922. It feels like it could have been made long after that. That's probably due to the fact that it relies on real settings and real people. It's not bound by the restrictions of manufactured sets, costumes, etc. of the period. However, though it looks utterly authentic, don't be fooled into thinking that Flaherty gives us a purely realistic snapshot of Eskimo life. He planted the early seeds of reality t.v. with this film, making careful use of editing to create a narrative with all of the melodramatic trappings of any studio picture. Though it's a fascinating film, it's also a reminder that documentary film is just as manipulative as fiction, and that Michael Moore wasn't the first to corner the market on presenting fiction as fact.Grade: A