Os Pescadores de Aran

I taped "Man of Aran" back in 1992 off a TV broadcast. I'm glad I still have it, because I'm certain I've never seen it on the air since. My father grew up on the smallest of the Aran Islands (hence my user ID), and I heard quite a bit about the film before finally seeing it. The baby girl in the crib, for instance, grew up to marry the brother of our one-time neighbor. Dad also assured me that Robert Flaherty didn't follow the islanders around unobtrusively with his camera, but staged all the action. Hunting sharks, for instance, may still have been done at the turn of the last century, but not by the 1930's. That same year (1992), Dad came across Robert Flaherty's daughter at an Irish festival. She mentioned that she had some unused footage from "Man of Aran" back home in New Hampshire. That would be great to see on a DVD version. Of course, who knows what kind of shape that film stock is in by now? Call it a 'documentary fantasy' if you will (which the British film magazine Sight & Sound did). To me, it will always be a powerful look at how harsh, and beautiful, it is to live off the sea.

If you were to ask passers-by on the street if they'd be interested in seeing a 1934 documentary about the harsh day-to-day existence of a tiny community living on a remote island off the coast of Ireland -- well, you'd be standing there all day before you could find someone who'd say, "sure!". Which is really a disappointment because they don't know what they're missing!

Think of every poem you've read about the sea and man's relation to it and you might get a clue as to the depths of feeling that this film has. It's like Hemingway, Pablo Neruda and W.B. Yeats all rolled into one. It's extremely simplistic, just shots of how a small family fishes, hauls seaweed for fertilizer (there is no soil on the island) and dodges waves so high that its foam sprays above the cliff-tops. Not to mention an incredible sequence where five fishermen try to catch and kill a shark that is a good deal larger than their boat!

What's most exhilarating about this film is that while you're watching it, you can't help but think that these people are crazy to choose to live in such a desolate and difficult place, but then you try to imagine them elsewhere and you know that they are as much a part of that environment as the stubborn sea-worn cliffs are. After even thirty minutes of the film, the roar of the ocean and the cries of the gulls fill your head to such an extreme that you know that such people could live no where else. This film is reminiscent of Roberto Rossellini's film, "Stromboli" about the inhabitants of a small village on a volcanic island. There are a few brief pockets of sentimentality due to the score, but the filmmakers thankfully left out the music during all of the film's most important scenes. Overall what you have is an incredible cinematic experience that makes you think and imagine what it would be like to live a life where every day is a struggle with the elements of nature and a fight for survival, yet filled with the deepest awe and respect for nature and for living.

This review is being written by a man who absolutely despises everything about realist style films. However, Flaherty's depiction of life on the Isle of Aran captivated me from start to finish. Filled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, Flaherty would have been lying through his teeth to have called this a documentary (the man of Aran wasn't even from Aran). Man of Aran remains realist however in that, I believe, in that it only speaks to you if you hold a connection to the sort of life it depicts. Flaherty brings forth the essence of that life but will only hold your interest if you actually care how someone might farm in a soilless field of broken rock.

If that isn't your bag, you can still at least enjoy Flaherty's visuals. Waves pound against rocky cliffs sending spray a hundred feet high. It is quite a spectacle.

I really enjoyed this film. It is best to ignore any questions about the plot and whether it is a movie or a documentary and just sit back and be transported back in time. The island is a beautiful, yet harsh and isolated place and the people are a product of that environment. I just saw the film after returning from a trip to Ireland, where we spent several enchanting days on the island, hiking in the rain. The locals told me about the movie, I had only a vague knowledge before then.

What has really sold me on the movie was the DVD edition we viewed it on. There is a wealth of details about the movie, the director, the island, and much more now available. Fans wedded to todays ultra-slick color and CGI productions might be disappointed, but for the serious movie fan this is a gem!

Another movie by a master movie maker.

His documentaries make one feel the hardship his subjects undergo, whether real or not.

A must see along with Nanook.

The visuals are stunning as is the empathy of the director for his subjects.

Would there be a documentary director like him today -- except for Frederick Wiseman whom I am sure was inspired by Flaherty's movies such as Nanook (a picture of a long lost world) and Man of Aran.

I wonder if people are still farming Aran or if they have all left for the big city.

There are other documentaries by the BBC -- See South Georgia Island or the re-creations of Shackleton's unsuccessful trip to the South Pole and you will feel as well as ache along with them.

A true pioneer when making films was difficult at best, impossible at worst. But Flaherty make the impossible real and captured a world that no longer exists.