Nanook of the North

A documentary on the life of a Native Inuit family, released in 1922 and directed by Robert J. Flaherty. "Nanook" was the first anthropological documentary film, and is still considered an important historical document. The film covers a year in the life of Nanook, an Inuk man, and his family.

Nowadays, we know that some of the scenes were faked slightly. For example, Nanook is depicted living in an igloo and hunting for food, but in real life, Nanook lived in a house and didn't have to hunt very often. However, building an igloo and hunting whales in a kayak certainly were skills that Nanook and the people of his tribe possessed -- he was essentially demonstrating for Flaherty's cameras how such things were done. Additionally, this was a very, very early documentary, made before there were hard rules for how much of a film had to be truthful or fictionalized. 

Other criticisms are more difficult to laugh off. Nanook is depicted as being a savage who's entirely ignorant of modern technology, not understanding how a record player worked. His encounters with white people were also scripted to make him look ignorant. Also, a lot of the details of his life were fictionalized in really weird ways. For one, his name was actually Allakariallak, but Flaherty thought "Nanook" was more marketable. Additionally, two of the women in his family weren't really related to him at all -- Nyla, depicted as Nanook's wife, and Cunayou, another woman in the family, were actually director Flaherty's common-law wives! 

The film was one of the first documentary films, and its success meant that more documentaries followed it. Its ground-breaking nature as cinema makes it worth viewing, and the work put in to depict the lives of Inuits, even if moderately fictionalized, also makes it fun to watch. 

The theme of “Nanook of the North” can best be described as the struggle to survive in everyday life in a harsh, unforgiving environment. The filmmaker expressed this everyday life with the idea that the act of being and living was simple in principle but in truth was an incredibly complicated and arduous journey. Exploring the possibilities for the topic of this piece, the simple principle of “the biography of an Eskimo family throughout the year” was mentioned in an interview about the making of Nanook and accurately sums up the topic. The main conflict is the struggle to attain food.

The characters are Nanook and his family: Nyla, Allee, Canayou, Rainbow, and their puppy, Comock. The dogs also play a constant role in their lives. These characters are the players in the topic of a year in the life on an Eskimo. They live out their lives and are filmed doing so.

The film begins with Nanook’s family making a boat. In it, they travel to the English trading post and trade some of their catching and furs for knives and candy. Nanook is impressed by a gramophone he has a chance to observe. Our Northern hero then traverses the dangerous ice floes to catch some mighty large fish. Later, his family has a food shortage and they all head off in the direction of a rumored walrus gathering. They successfully manage to kill a walrus in a lengthy battle of strength and endurance and are saved from starvation. They build a new igloo, complete with a spiffy window. Journeying away from their new home, Nanook and company catch a seal but get caught in a blizzard and take shelter in an abandoned igloo, feeding the ravenous dogs that pull them across the frozen north.

The main action sequences are when Nanook is struggling with other animals. The walrus hunt, the seal hunt, the catching of the fox, and the feeding of the dogs are the main adrenaline scenes in the film. This is a simple documentary, one of the first of its kind, and yet it is powerful and profound even in its silent state.