Monday, November 15, 2010

Talking in Pictures

Man of Aran (1934)
directed by Robert J. Flaherty
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Man of Aran begins, like Louisiana Story, with moving water and a child. But unlike that later masterpiece, Man of Aran is more of a technical exercise: a lesson in editing when the power of the ocean makes "telling it straight" impossible. Domestic scenes are the most beautiful, and the boy asleep beneath a still lamp approaches the tranquility of Joseph Boudreaux poling through the bayous of the American South. There is tangible comfort on that remote fringe of the Irish West, among dreaming beasts and warmth against the stormy world outside.

But they are separate worlds, home and island, and the wilderness around Michael Dirrane is stone, water, and wind, and none of it soft at all. Man of Aran is rough all over, and not only for Flaherty's limitations. But he is a master at capturing the essence of everyday scenes like cooking dinner or fishing for it. I've rarely been more surprised or delighted by a wrinkle in the plot than when Michael looks down into the sea from a perch on the cliffs and sees a basking shark feeding near the shore. There is a physicality to the grain of the stock and the drift of the beast that winnows the glass from the screen and sifts across each of one's senses. Flaherty might have made a great surfing film had he lived a little longer.