Eskimo Reviews

A prurient look at life among the Inuit, presumably intended to evoke such classic slices of exotic life as TABU (1931) and, most conspicuously, NANOOK OF THE NORTH (1922). But ESKIMO's emphasis on the sex lives of Arctic dwellers struck reviewers as a bit dubious. Mala, a respected tribal leader, and his wives live a hardscrabble existence in the frozen North. A skilled hunter, Mala tracks down walrus, caribou and whales, and leads his villagers in battling wolves and the inhospitable elements. The film is particularly interested in the way they while away the cold winter nights, freely trading wives. The Inuit have little contact with white men, though they engage in some trading with vessels that venture to their settlement. The captain of one such vessel cheats the villagers and makes crude advances to one of Mala's wives: Mala harpoons the man in retaliation. This brings the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to their encampment. ESKIMO ran a full two hours, and its photography was highly praised. The dialogue was in the characters' native language, and "old fashioned screen title[s]" were used to clarify the action. ESKMO's narrative was adapted from two books by German adventurer Peter Freuchen, Der Eskimo and Die Flucht Ins Weisse Land; Freuchen also appeared in the film, playing the lecherous skipper, while director Van Dyke took the role of a Mountie. Van Dyke, widely known as a no-nonsense, dependable director, took over the direction of 1928's fiction feature WHITE SHADOWS OF THE SOUTH SEAS from Robert Flaherty, which may have put him in mind to helm this film. ESKIMO s ethnographic credentials are less than pristine: In fact, a souvenir book handed out at the time of the film's release admitted that many of the individuals depicted onscreen came to Hollywood to shoot additional scenes and process shots. But Freuchen, who was married to an Eskimo woman, is considered one of the most vivid and sympathetic observers and chroniclers of his time of Eskimo culture and day-to-day life.