I wasn't really at all sure what I was about to watch when I put this Blu-ray in and I'm not really certain, after watched, what it was either. There is a large booklet and several extras and apparently even more reels and reels of unseen footage and yet this celebrated offering seems really to be the result of an aborted mission to combine the talents of F W Murnau and Robert Flaherty. Trouble is this beautifully looking artefact is neither a wondrous and informative documentary nor an involving and poetic tale. Even the opening scenes, apparently more the work of Flaherty are idyllic scenes of young, indigenous peoples fishing and cavorting but infected by an overreaching urge to pose and further idealise the goings on. Things get much worse when the hand of Murau becomes firmer and a fairytale like story is woven from the innocence that abounds thereby adding some Disney like veneer to proceedings. Everything looks good and why would it not o a South Sea island but the pushy, preachy manner in which the 'actors' are prodded into action and 'artistic' positions reminds me of early so called documentaries where animals were supplied with human voices to make them less like wild animals. Remarkable footage then and well enough put together. Must have been hell out there with all that primitive and unwieldy equipment even if there were the lovely native boys and girls by way of compensation.
