Nanook of the North

TW: Discussion of racist/stereotypical presentations

Overall: How do you talk about a film like this?

I've head the name "Nanook of the North" since childhood. Usually some character in a work would be jokingly nicknamed Nanook and I learned that it was some reference to an old movie. The only reference I came across in recent years was from the Legend of Korra, in the form of "The Adventures of Nuktuk: Hero of the South". Where LoK sort of pokes fun at the film, I think it might actually be a good reference for me to check back with in addressing the film's interplay between Flaherty (the director) and Allakariallak (The Inuk star of the film, whose character is named Nanook).

That's a starting point right there, of course - the fact that the film is presented as a documentary is in many ways laughable. The character of Nanook is not real. He is an amalgamation of various Inuit half-truths presented in a manner similar to how some members of the Maasai partake in tourist attractions today. In the 1920's when Nanook was filmed, the Inuit were using rifles and had begun integrating western clothes into their lives. Allakariallak knew what a gramophone was, and didn't need to be told. However, therein lies the rub, I think. Nanook isn't Allakariallak, and this film, though it purports a documentarian stance, is mostly a fictionalized account of a fictional person's life.

There are tons of ethics questions to unpack here. On the one hand, indigenous peoples being presented as ignorant of western society is damaging and a real ugly way to go about making a film. On the other hand, I have to remember that Allakariallak was a star. As far as I know, he and the other people in the film were not forced to do any of the things their characters did - they were cast and paid actors who at the very least were actually Inuit people and not white folks in facepaint.

The film's narrative is almost entirely fabrication - Allakariallak did not die of starvation while hunting two years after production, as the film suggests--he died of natural causes in his home. The igloo that is built was not used for filming interior shots, as the camera could not fit inside. There are rumors that the scene in which Allakariallak wrestles a seal on the other end of a rope actually had no seal on the other end. The film is not a documentary in any "let the cameras roll" sense. It's an ethnographic film, that like an ethnography, purports to make claims about a population based on some minor observation and storytelling techniques. I'd really be interested in hearing various perspectives on this film, as I imagine there are plenty. I think for me the most troubling aspects of the film are the use of the term "e*****" to refer to these people, and the killing of various live animals that took place as a part of the filming. I generally don't like when live animals are used for film narrative purposes, and especially not when they're hunted as a "documentarian" venture. In terms of representation, though, I don't know that it's the worst representation I've seen. It's got its problems, but there is a measure of reassurance in the casting of actual Inuk people.

I realize as I write this that there's not much I can say by way of the film's "plot." It mostly follows the character of Nanook in the daily life of his family. They go about trading, hunting, building an igloo, and trying to survive. There is no real antagonist, except perhaps the elements, and the film doesn't really have a climax as much as it does a final scene in which Nanook's dogs begin fighting one another (ugh) and Nanook settles it down. His family is then unable to start building an igloo because it is too late, but they find an abandoned one to bunker down in for the night.

So I think for documentaries I'm mostly just going to do commentary and avoid plot synopses as I make my way through these collections... so then, like I said at the beginning, let's talk about Korra.

In The Legend of Korra, there's a sub-plot that crops up throughout seasons 2 and 3 surrounding the character of Bolin who becomes a "mover" star in a serial called "The Adventures of Nuktuk: Hero of the South" and while it's obviously a play on Nanook I can't help but draw some wider parallels between the production of Nanook and the production of The Legend of Korra.

Nanook is fake. Allakariallak was a movie star who played a character named Nanook. In the same way, Nuktuk is fake, played by a mover star named Bolin. But let's abstract this a bit further. Bolin is fake. P.J. Byrne is an actor who was cast in the role of an asian-coded character by two white directors. These two directors take potshots at the idea of appropriation and anachronism that plays into the making of the Nuktuk serials, while themselves creating a story which loosely plays on folklore and various non-white cultures as viewed through a white western lens. I mean, even the voice acting, although including some notable names (including Jason Isaacs as Zhao) is largely absent of people of color, especially when compared to another animated property that came out half a decade earlier and featured a non-white cast of characters, Disney's Mulan.

What am I trying to get at here? I'm not exactly sure, I guess. I suppose that if I have a point it's that I'd be hesitant to go after Nanook of the North as an antiquated, harmful, and racist piece. I mean, certainly these things are in it, don't get me wrong, the fact that they use the word "e*****" is point enough, but I don't really think that it's fair for modern audiences to posture as though our own media properties have undergone some great leap forward with regard to how non-white actors are cast and live action people of color are presented on film.

I'd be perfectly willing to hear other perspectives with regard to this topic, but I'm hesitant of inviting some kind of flame war... I may very well be overlooking some crucial analyses that have been done on Nanook over the years that could shed some new light on the topic, this was just sort of where my mind went upon viewing it. A film which seems to say more about the filmmakers and what they consider uncivilized (albeit admirable in some way). Which, ironically, is set against films like Haxan and what 1920s culture considered civilization.

Häxan

Häxan
directed by Benjamin Christensen




TW: for discussion of oppression, historical torture (inquisitions mostly), religious abuse, and coerced psychiatry.

How do we take a movie like Häxan? In some ways I feel like watching this is akin to watching DW Griffith's Birth of a Nation. On one hand, it's a piece of filmic history, on the other it's a reiteration of what were (and are) systemic injustices and violences done upon various marginalized bodies (women in the former and black people in the latter).

I'll grant that Häxan is probably not as purposefully inflammatory as Griffith's film. It takes its subject, the history of witchcraft and the treatment of women accused as witches throughout history, as a symptom of a bygone superstitious belief system supplanted by scientific insight and more modern medicine.... but that's.. well we'll get there.

The film begins with a recounting of various myths from throughout history, landing on how the conception of medieval Christianity conceived of the world as existing in spheres, at the top of which sat the Christian God and at the bottom of which was found Hell.




From here, we're informed of the belief that throughout history certain women were perceived as being particularly susceptible to the influence of the devil. It's interesting that the movie's portrayal of this history is very much of a double consciousness about this. On the one hand, these women are to be pitied and helped (oh the help...), but this is most often when they are in the company of men. When these women congregate together, they are feared. There are some really stunning shots during this part of the movie as the film shows the witches in flight across various nighttime foreground structures.



From this somewhat empowering view of the witch as an object of fear, the movie then moves us forward to a period where religious persecution holds sway. In this segment of the movie, we see that the movie does at least know that the treatment of women at this time was vile. Women are pressured into confessions under threat to their loved ones, and are routinely killed after enduring horrible torture at the hands of these monks and inquisitors. It's really at times some pretty brutal stuff, and there's a real sense of the injustice of the time.

After wrapping this up, the film begins its conclusion that's a bit... well, it's cause for reflection. The film was made in 1922, and I imagine was one of the very early documentary style films. The film has a very "look how far we've come" attitude about the attitudes toward women. Saying that what used to be called witchcraft.... is now properly known as hysteria....

The funny thing is, I think the film's a bit of a mirror. So many people still berate feminists with this idea that because women are now able to do X action (vote, work, have birth control), that we've somehow totally overcome sexist ideology. In this way, Häxan seems less like an opportunity to shake our heads at the ignorance and misogyny of these people in 1922, and more as an invitation to look at how this same sort of pattern of thought is ongoing and insidious, and that changes to ideology (such as the introduction of intersectionality to feminism) are needed as a fine-tuning instrument, lest we claim some action or movement as a panacea for oppression (as psychiatry is posited in this film).

Given this, I also think that the sympathetic portrayal of the witch is interesting. I have several female-identifying friends who associate strongly with various forms of witchcraft, paganism, and Wicca. I think that in some ways these are oftentimes counter-narratives that go against the patriarchal narratives instituted by Western Abrahamic religious hegemony. It's a subversive tactic, and the shot that I'm reminded of the most comes from the end of the witch segment of the movie. In it, it's explained that it was believed that witches would turn into cats and, with animal guards, sneak into churches and crap on the floor. I can't help but see this as another instance of the film discussing a sort of subversive tactic taken against oppression.



Also it has these hilarious costumes of the people dressed up as cats.... like, they could've just used real cats. But no, they made like, four or five of these costumes.