Popular reviews

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  Review by m. h. murray 1

  me, walking from my heated home to my heated car: damn it's chilly outside today

  Nanook: shut the fuck up

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  Review by meg✨ ★★★ 3

  This whole thing was so cool to watch, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around how many people fit into that kayak.

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  Review by russman ★★★★ 3

  Those puppies had it made with their own personal igloo

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★½ 2

  63/100

  Couldn't care less that Flaherty staged some of this, as it plays more like fiction than a documentary in any case—not surprising, since the latter concept didn't really exist at the time (and the word itself, I now learn, was coined four years later in reference to another Flaherty film, Moana). And while the intertitles' descriptions of "Nanook" and his "family" are often patronizing, making allowances for the era permits one to tune that out to some degree and focus on the copious how-to footage, with igloo construction being far and away the most in-depth and fascinating. Unfortunately, quite a bit of Nanook is devoted to hunting, and watching actual animals being killed in a prolonged struggle invariably upsets…

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  Review by darth icky ★★★

  Get you a spouse who will chew your seal skin boots before a long day of ice fishing

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  Review by Neil Bahadur 1

  What happens when Lumiere’s actualities start connecting shots rather than existing one-by-one, on their own. In a way Flaherty pushes even this - a significant number of sequences end up being staged, sometimes for practicality, other times to show a way of life that no longer exists. So in that sense, it is not a representation of the modernized Inuit of 1922. Of course it isn’t. Western clothing had already been introduced to Inuit culture, and rifles were being used to hunt, rather than harpoons. But that doesn’t negate the fact that these Inuit still knew how to use them - so Flaherty recreates these moments, perhaps at the expense of the truth of the moment in front of him.…

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  Review by TajLV ★★★★

  Often referred to as "the first full-length, anthropological documentary in cinematographic history," this docudrama is certainly a classic. As an explorer and prospector for the Canadian Pacific Railway, director Robert J. Flaherty made several trips to Hudson Bay in the Canadian Arctic between 1913 and 1921. That's where he met Allakariallak, the celebrated hunter of the Itivimuit tribe, and decided to record a "year in the life" of an Eskimo family.

  From salmon fishing, fox trapping and walrus hunting to how to repair a kayak with seal skin and build an igloo from packed snow, the film gives us great insight into a way of life hardly known in the early 20th century and fast-disappearing a hundred years later. We…

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  Review by joecamel ★ 5

  Fuck this movie! Sure enough I was very charmed as I watched it. However, upon doing a little research after the fact I came to find this film to be something of a fraud, a phony, a big fat liar just like Paul Giamatti. I wouldn't go so far as to call this film racist personally but at the same time you can't say it's misguided. It is not willfully ignorant either but rather intentionally distorts the truth to fit it's narrative and in a way that I would argue is quite harmful.

  It's funny, I was initially gonna talk about how this film shatters the misconception that the Inuit eat blubber, which is something I thought to be true…

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  Review by Wesley Stenzel ★★★ 5

  A stunning documentary that captures the beauty of everyday life, with a seemingly high regard for its subjects. Several scenes are elegantly captured and absolutely fascinating, and had I not researched Flaherty’s behind-the-scenes strategy, I’d like and appreciate the film a lot more.

  Unfortunately, not only is a large portion of the footage staged, but it’s also untruthful: Flaherty went out of his way to make his subjects seem less technologically-advanced and culturally-savvy than they actually were. A simple explanation of his goal — which, apparently, was to capture the Inuit lifestyle before European colonization — would make all the difference, but since the filmmaker presents his footage as complete truth, he perpetuates unfair stereotypes and betrays the documentary genre that he helped create.

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  Review by Will Sloan

  No spoilers, but it was nifty how he built a window in his igloo.

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  Review by braden 2

  “The mysterious Barren Lands - desolate, boulder-strewn, wind-swept - illimitable spaces which top the world”
  
  I stumbled across Nanook of the North while looking for a documentary on Inuit lifestyle and culture without realising that it is believed to be the very first documentary/docudrama feature film; pioneered by director Robert J. Flaherty who combined footage with text to present audiences with a supposedly first-hand, realistic glimpse at the life of an Inuk. 

  Since it’s release it’s been subject to a range of criticisms as the information it depicts as fact is often staged or exaggerated; omitting certain details to make the people seem less aware of modern technology and manufacturing certain events to add tension and interest to its story.…

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ ★★★★★ 3

  Nanook of the North was, for many years, the second and last documentary that can be found on my favorite movies' list. There are several reasons why Nanook of the North became one of my favorite movies ever, making emphasis on the fact that I have already mentioned the differences of my evaluation standards for both feature films and documentaries before. Without a doubt, Nanook of the North is officially considered as one of the best documentaries ever made in cinema history, and it is definitely the best classic documentary I have seen with the length of a normal movie. Whereas giant cinema icons such as F.W. Murnau, D.W. Griffith and Sergei M. Eisenstein were establishing themselves as memorable legends…