This film stands poised, as if between an iceberg and a deadly chill sea, between the condemnation of past and future. What I mean is, I'm sure when it was released it angered conservatives, and at this point in time I'm sure it will anger liberals. It tells the story of one Inuit man, played by Anthony Quinn ("Quinn the Eskimo"), who often refers to himself as "somebody" or "a man." We're told that this is the way Inuit people speak.... I don't know about that, any more than that they relish raw meat, but it certainly gives the film a universal quality that must frustrate all sorts of people who prefer to think politically.
The story is a bit rambling, as it takes about an hour to get to the real crisis: Quinn's character accidentally kills a white missionary, and is hunted by police even though he does not understand what he has done. In truth, he's sorry for killing the white man, but the white man was also guilty of breaking his own laws. Whose law is valid? As his wife, played excellently by Yoko Tani, says "when you come to someone's house, bring your wives, not your laws."
The movie is full of outrageous content, but the purpose of pushing the audience so far out of its comfort zone is to make us feel empathy for those who do not buy into our "civilization." What we take for granted certainly seems a luxury or even a trivial thing when it is contemplated in the midst of an environment where life and death are barely separable, where a slip into the water just means "he's dead", not "oh i better save him." As Quinn says when the one cop falls in the water, "he's dead, and you're stupid to try to save him." White values mean nothing in this environment, not because some liberal decided that it was so, but because survival is more real than white values.
I thought the performances were all excellent, with O'Toole being handed the difficult job of the sympathetic white man. I think it was brave for Nicholas Ray to depict white civilization in such a negative light. Like all his best movies, this film depicts a small community of outsiders, people who exist outside the normal law and morality but who create their own values and way of life. It is an admirable, if sometimes flawed, picture that will not leave your mind anytime soon.
The story is a bit rambling, as it takes about an hour to get to the real crisis: Quinn's character accidentally kills a white missionary, and is hunted by police even though he does not understand what he has done. In truth, he's sorry for killing the white man, but the white man was also guilty of breaking his own laws. Whose law is valid? As his wife, played excellently by Yoko Tani, says "when you come to someone's house, bring your wives, not your laws."
The movie is full of outrageous content, but the purpose of pushing the audience so far out of its comfort zone is to make us feel empathy for those who do not buy into our "civilization." What we take for granted certainly seems a luxury or even a trivial thing when it is contemplated in the midst of an environment where life and death are barely separable, where a slip into the water just means "he's dead", not "oh i better save him." As Quinn says when the one cop falls in the water, "he's dead, and you're stupid to try to save him." White values mean nothing in this environment, not because some liberal decided that it was so, but because survival is more real than white values.
I thought the performances were all excellent, with O'Toole being handed the difficult job of the sympathetic white man. I think it was brave for Nicholas Ray to depict white civilization in such a negative light. Like all his best movies, this film depicts a small community of outsiders, people who exist outside the normal law and morality but who create their own values and way of life. It is an admirable, if sometimes flawed, picture that will not leave your mind anytime soon.