Can you tell I'm back at university after summer, or what?
One of my modules is documentary film, and apparently this was the first film that we would today call "a documentary". Basically, a guy got a camera, traveled up to the frozen north of Canada, and filmed a small tribe of Inuit people going about their usual activities. He also was a bit racist and made some stuff up.
Which, aside from this just being a bit boring to me personally, is definitely the biggest issue with it: quite a few scenes in this are just blatantly made up, and seemingly for the purpose of going "hey look at how the weird snow people don't know what these things are, aren't they funny?" It leaves quite a sour taste in your mouth when you read about things like the people in this film having access to guns that the director told them to not use while filming to make them look more primitive, that Nanook isn't even the main character's name, that he in fact knew exactly what a gramophone was, and other things like that.
Now I know most documentaries make some minor details up, or exaggerate or fudge the facts/timeline somewhat, and that's fine, but here it's just racist and doesn't feel like it was made only to teach people about how Inuit people live.
Other than that, it's a revolutionary film I guess, so I can appreciate it for that at least, but that is the only reason it's getting a 3 and not a 2.5 for me. While there are some nice shots and it is undeniably a huge filmmaking achievement, I'm always iffy about documentaries that make this much stuff up, and for that to be racially motivated on top of that is just...ew.
And it did start getting pretty boring to me about halfway through, although that's just a personal issue I suppose.
The main character does seem very nice and wholesome though, so that's something, isn't it? Whatever, I'm going back to dumb ol' fiction films that don't teach me anything whatsoever.
One of my modules is documentary film, and apparently this was the first film that we would today call "a documentary". Basically, a guy got a camera, traveled up to the frozen north of Canada, and filmed a small tribe of Inuit people going about their usual activities. He also was a bit racist and made some stuff up.
Which, aside from this just being a bit boring to me personally, is definitely the biggest issue with it: quite a few scenes in this are just blatantly made up, and seemingly for the purpose of going "hey look at how the weird snow people don't know what these things are, aren't they funny?" It leaves quite a sour taste in your mouth when you read about things like the people in this film having access to guns that the director told them to not use while filming to make them look more primitive, that Nanook isn't even the main character's name, that he in fact knew exactly what a gramophone was, and other things like that.
Now I know most documentaries make some minor details up, or exaggerate or fudge the facts/timeline somewhat, and that's fine, but here it's just racist and doesn't feel like it was made only to teach people about how Inuit people live.
Other than that, it's a revolutionary film I guess, so I can appreciate it for that at least, but that is the only reason it's getting a 3 and not a 2.5 for me. While there are some nice shots and it is undeniably a huge filmmaking achievement, I'm always iffy about documentaries that make this much stuff up, and for that to be racially motivated on top of that is just...ew.
And it did start getting pretty boring to me about halfway through, although that's just a personal issue I suppose.
The main character does seem very nice and wholesome though, so that's something, isn't it? Whatever, I'm going back to dumb ol' fiction films that don't teach me anything whatsoever.