Moana

1926

Documentary

4
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 57% · 15 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 57% · 50 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.8/10 10 838 838

south seas indigenous coconut samoa polynesia polynesian

Plot summary

Robert J. Flaherty’s follow-up to Nanook of the North shifts from the Arctic to the South Seas, portraying Samoan village life with a painterly eye. Blending ethnographic detail with a romanticized “Gauguin idyll,” the film celebrates daily rituals, communal traditions, and the passage into adulthood, suffused with what Flaherty called “pride of beauty, pride of strength.”

Director

Robert J. Flaherty Photo
Robert J. Flaherty

Top cast

Ta'avale Photo
Ta'avale as Moana
Fa'amgase Photo
Fa'amgase as Moana's Fiancé
Tama Photo
Tama as Moana's Father
T'ugaita Photo
T'ugaita as Moana's Mother
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
897.22 MB
1280*988
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 37 min
Seeds 3
1.63 GB
1368*1056
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 37 min
Seeds 7

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by springfieldrental 7 / 10

The First Use of Term Documentary to Describe Cultural Film

The true definition of the cinematc genre 'documentary' has been debated since the early years of film when moving photographic images first recorded remote cultures living far from Western civilizations. Can staged events for film of long-ago abandoned habits still be regarded as a way of explaining how the ethnological practices of an exotic group of people live their daily lives?Robert J. Flaherty first movie, 1922 "Nanook of the North," gave a glimpse of how an Artic Northern Indigenous people conducted their daily way of living. A couple of years later, contracted this time by Paramount Pictures, Flaherty and his crew set out to photograph a culture they assumed was untouched by modern conveniences in Pacific Samoa. Much to their surprise, despite the Polynesians living the life of tropical comfort, they were governed by a western-style form of government wearing contemporary clothing more like those found in Hawaii at the time. Still, Flaherty worked his magic by demonstrating how the island natives practiced centuries-old customs in his January 1926 "Moano." The movie's title was named after the male lead in the feature film, meaning 'deep sea, deep water.'In a February 8, 1926, New York Sun review of Flaherty's work, John Grierson wrote, "'Moana,' being a visual account of events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth, has documentary value." This was the first time the term 'documentary,' taken for the French 'documentaire' was used to describe such a genre in cinema. Because of the way Flaherty manipulated the movie's characters, events and reenactment of their customs, today's critics are apt to label his work as a "docufiction," which describes filmmakers' managing the scenes filmed. Flaherty's justification in reenacting long-ago practices is done to give a better understanding of the exotic customs and natural events of these distant people.The excitement of a majority of documentaries is to show how people survive against harsh elements or battle large beasts of nature in order to survive. Flaherty's initial observation of the Samoans was their environment offered no drama, that their way of living was relatively easy. So the filmmaker, besides capturing the stunning beauty of the tropical island, resorted to filming a way of life that was still labor-intensive in some respects. But he had to tweak other aspects of their day-to-day living to keep his viewers' interest.Flaherty rearranged the members of the family he was following, injecting other Polynesians into the unit for their photogenic qualities and their acting abilities. Flaherty wanted to show a long-abandoned practice of introducing juveniles into manhood by the painful ritual of a body tattoo. He paid a teenager a large sum of money to be the guinea pig to undergo the ordeal. He also swapped the Samoan's modern clothes for traditional ones such as tapa cloth and topless attire.A secondary documentary without the reshuffling of facts could easily have been following Flaherty's trials of filming with the basic visual technology available back then. Transporting 16 tons of filmmaking equipment, including color cameras and film stock, Flaherty's crew underwent quite an ordeal on this remote island. Beside camera malfunctions, Flaherty designed his movie to use the more vivid panchromatic black-and-white film, which he had to be develop on the island. Trouble was the more complex process of panchromatic unknowingly leached its silver nitrate into the water inside the cave Flaherty used as a darkroom. He drank some of the water, sending him to the medics to cure his ailment. He also found his raw film contained some spots on the negative, forcing him to discard several batches of footage.Upon "Moana's" release, American audiences didn't warm up to the exotic scenes of the Pacific. But Europeans lapped up the tropical themes of Flaherty's feature film, assuring the future of documentaries could find an enthusiastic market for the newly-defined genre. In 1980, Flaherty's youngest child, Monica, who was brought over to Samoa in 1924 with her father, went back to record the sounds and dialogue of the island's village life. With the traditional songs of its people, Monica matched the audio with Flaherty's original, although much of the original film composite was denigrated. A few decades later, a more pristine and longer copy of 'Moana" was discovered. Matching Monica's soundtrack with the newly restored version presented the true essence of Flaherty's ground-breaking documentary.
Reviewed by AlsExGal 7 / 10

Another ethnographic documentary from Robert Flaherty...

...this time focusing on Polynesian islanders, specifically the island of Savai'i in the Samoans. Most of the film depicts the gathering and hunting of foodstuffs, be it trapping a wild boar, fishing, catching a large sea tortoise, pulling up taro root, and in one famous scene, watching a young boy climb a perilously tall tree to gather coconuts. Everything leads up to a rite of passage ceremony involving dancing and tattooing.Flaherty and his wife lived among the islanders for two years gathering footage. As in other films by the director, Flaherty staged some scenes, although ironically it was during a review of this film that the word "documentary" was first used to refer to movies. The version I watched was the beautiful 2014 restoration supervised by Flaherty's daughter Monica. It's known as Moana with Sound, as Monica went back to the islands and recorded ambient nature sounds as well as the chit-chat of natives in their own, non-subtitled, tongue, as well as some of their singing. This new soundtrack was placed over the silent footage from '26. After watching it, I would think the original film would be a bit less enjoyable without the sound. This movie was a hit on the exploitation circuit, where they played up the topless native girls.
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