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Moana

  • 19261926
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 1h 25m
IMDb RATING
6.8/10
659
YOUR RATING
Moana (1926)
Robert and Frances Flaherty and family traveled to the Samoan island of Savaii to record the native life and make a film that would try to match the success of Nanook of the North. Restored in 2K with native sounds and traditional songs that Flahertys daughter recorded over a half-century after they shot it, Monica Flaherty's Moana with Sound is a beautiful work of docufiction and an important piece of film history.
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Documentary
Filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty presents a docufictional account of a family living in a Samoan village in the early 1920s.Filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty presents a docufictional account of a family living in a Samoan village in the early 1920s.Filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty presents a docufictional account of a family living in a Samoan village in the early 1920s.
IMDb RATING
6.8/10
659
YOUR RATING
    • Frances H. Flaherty
    • Robert J. Flaherty
    • Frances H. Flaherty(screenplay)
    • Robert J. Flaherty(screenplay)
    • Julian Johnson(titles)
  • Stars
    • Ta'avale
    • Fa'amgase
    • T'ugaita
    • Frances H. Flaherty
    • Robert J. Flaherty
    • Frances H. Flaherty(screenplay)
    • Robert J. Flaherty(screenplay)
    • Julian Johnson(titles)
  • Stars
    • Ta'avale
    • Fa'amgase
    • T'ugaita
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 6User reviews
    • 12Critic reviews
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 2:00
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    Photos

    Moana (1926)
    Moana (1926)
    Moana (1926)
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    Top cast

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    Ta'avale
    • Moana
    Fa'amgase
    • Moana's Fiancé
    T'ugaita
    • Moana's Mother
    Tama
    • Moana's Father
    Pe'a
    • Moana's Younger Brother
    Leupenga
    • Moana's Older Brother
    Emma Hudson
    • Extra
      • Frances H. Flaherty
      • Robert J. Flaherty
      • Frances H. Flaherty(screenplay) (title writer)
      • Robert J. Flaherty(screenplay) (titles)
      • Julian Johnson(titles)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      The word "documentary" was first applied to films of this nature in an anonymous review of this movie written by John Grierson, aka "The Moviegoer", in New York Sun, 8 February 1926.
    • Goofs
      Despite Robert and Frances Flaherty's commitment to showing Samoan life as it had been rather than what it had become after the islands were discovered by Westerners, there's at least one Western industrial product in the film: the knife Moana uses to shave a wood stick to serve as a harpoon.
    • Connections
      Referenced in Grierson (1973)

    User reviews6

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    9/10
    Evolution of the Documentary
    Say the name and most people will think of the 2016 animated Disney feature. I just looked at Robert J. Flaherty's documentary about life in Polynesia; after all that time in the Arctic filming NANOOK OF THE NORTH, a couple of years with his wife and children in warm Samoa must have been a very pleasant working vacation. In the early 1980s, a version was released with a new soundtrack, but I looked at a version with none.

    These days our concepts of documentaries are informed by an additional ninety years of development. Documentaries are compiled by interviews and delving into archives and by following the subjects around, waiting for something interesting to happen in a cinema verite way; anthropology is a well-developed discipline. In the 1920s, there were no such standards, everyone was inventing new techniques as they went along, Paramount hoped to recoup the money advanced Flaherty for the project, and Flaherty understood the rhythms and techniques of film -- its poetry, if you will. As a result, to the practiced eye, many of the events of this film were carefully staged and edited. Wait until about a third of the way through the film You'll see a youngster, Moana's younger brother, climb a tall palm, gather coconuts, and bring them down. Not only is the sequence edited, with another member of the family watching, but the camera's vantage shifts dramatically, from watching the youngster climb -- from afar -- to watching him twist the coconuts off the tree -- from a few feet away. Clearly this entire sequence was shot over several days.

    On the other hand, there are several bits that clearly preserve actual techniques of the period: Moana and her mother making cloth; hauling a turtle aboard an outrigger; cleaning taro, freshly pulled from the earth.

    If there is a message in this movie, it is that these people live closer to the earth and sea than the movie's audience. Even a rural audience in this period would be thoroughly civilized, from farm animals, to guns for hunting, to harvesters, to the movie projectors and screens that showed them this film. There is a message that the riches that these trapping of civilization bring are fine and dandy, but so is a coconut you have climbed the tree to get for your family and yourself.
    helpful•6
    1
    • boblipton
    • Dec 30, 2017

    Details

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    • Release date
      • January 7, 1926 (United States)
      • United States
      • None
    • Also known as
      • Samoa
    • Production company
      • Robert Flaherty Productions Inc.
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • 1 hour 25 minutes
      • Black and White
      • Silent

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