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130 Shorter Reviews
It is not a tour de force in the use of sound, as Lang's M, but it is well made and definitely worth seeing.
(Contemporary Films)
MAN OF ARAN
(Britain. 1934)
Directed by Robert Flaherty
Robert Flaherty is one of the foremost documentarians who dedicated his artistic life to the honest treatment of people in their own locale. For his life-long integrity and for his attempts to ignore the well-plotted films of Hollywood, he has won an immense reputation among certain film devotees. Although there is a temptation to praise Flahery highly as the one lone voice of truth in a sea of cheap production values, one must attempt to put aside his noble, personal battles and judge instead the films.
Flaherty spent about three years on the Aran Islands of Ireland, studied the people, and tried to draw from the locale the slight elements of a story line to hold together his conception of their struggle for existence. Man and the rocky, barren island hold out stubbornly against the assaulting sea, which Flaherty depicts in many beautiful shots. The islanders, however, do not only brave the sea, but also force the sterile island to yield some nourishment by creating top soil from rocks and seaweed. The greater part of the film, though, is concerned with a whalehunt. A child spies the whale, the men put out in a boat, row towards the gigantic beast, and harpoon it. Although there are innumerable shots of the boat, the shadow of the whale, the rope leading from the harpoon, and the watching mother and child, Flaherty fails to build excitement. Through vigorous cross cutting, better and more economical organization of his material, he could have brought out the drama that lies within the incident. The formal deficiencies of Flaherty are embarrassingly apparent as he fails to make the capture of the whale significant in action as well as in fact. Instead of marvelling at the strength and fortitude of the men, we ask in spite of ourselves, "Not caught yet?" Admittedly the hunt was a real one and we do not expect under-sea close-ups, but there could be an increase in the dramatic tension between the men — their excitement, danger, anxiety — and the whale.
The rest of the film is composed of hundreds of different shots of the ocean waves boiling in white froth as they crash against the cliffs. But one tires of such beauty. This weariness stems from Flaherty's inability to intensify, to enhance, to build; he can only repeat and, as we all know, repetition quickly loses its power, however impressive the material may be. Some writers (Richard Griffith in particular) wax enthusiastic over the ability of Flaherty to bring to an audience the essence of the people he depicts. In Man of Aran, in spite of the fact that we have spent the time of an average feature film, we have been shown very little of the islanders. The father and occasionally the mother take heroic poses before the sky as they work, but we are given no insights into their char