THE PROS OF KON-TIKI
Directors on the challenge of filming in two languages,
Kon-Tiki
(out of 4) Starring Pal Sverre Hagen, Anders Baasmo Christiansen and Gustaf Skarsgard. Directed by Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg. 96 minutes. Opens May 3 at the Varsity. PG “Wise men are not always right,” Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl reminds the anthropology heavyweights who oppose him in the early going of Kon-Tiki.
The foreign-language Oscar-nominated recreation of Heyerdahl’s 7,000-kilometre expedition across the Pacific on a tiny balsawood raft is part history lesson, part classic adventure tale and often stunning to watch.
Directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg ( Max Manus), aided by cinematographer Geir Hartly Andreassen, put the viewer on that tiny sliver of wood for101days in the middle of vast ocean in 1947.
Scenes of New York life in the 1940s are just as faithfully recreated as Heyerdahl (impossibly blue-eyed Pal Sverre Hagen, shades of Peter O’Toole in Lawrence Of Arabia) makes the rounds for funding at National Geograph
ic, which refused to fund what editors saw as a suicide mission, and the smoky old boys’ elegance of The Explorers’ Club. There he learns a pivotal lesson: doing what the locals do can save your life when it comes to facing the elements. Trust their expertise.
But the film goes deeper, exploring the reasons why anyone — let alone someone terrified of water like Heyerdahl, who nearly drowned as a child and couldn’t sail — would take such risks just to prove a debated scientific point. Stubborn and convinced that Polynesians arrived from Peru, not Asia, using ocean currents as a highway, Heyerdahl figured the only way to prove his theory was to live it. He also filmed the voyage, the resulting film winning the Best Documentary Oscar in 1951. His memoires were required reading for anyone with a sense of adventure.
The drive, some might suggest arrogance, that sent Heyerdahl and five crew members out to sea to take such risks is palpable as the Kon-Tiki is launched from Callao, Peru. They were dressed in their best suits and ties for newsreel cameras. Heyerdahl was obsessed with news coverage, knowing it could lead to support that would fund further research.
Most had no seafaring experience, and the raft, built by their hands from logs and lashings, had no power or navigation or reliable means of communication, save for a dodgy radio transmitter. But they had a parrot and their wits and the kind of old-fashioned lust for adventure rarely seen onscreen anymore.
Harrowing encounters with a variety of sea life adds another note of drama while, shades of Life of Pi, encounters with gorgeous bioluminescent sea creatures are mesmerizing. But it’s the human creatures on the raft who often pose the most risk and the dangers they faced actually happened.
Shot simultaneously in English and Norwegian, the actors deserve praise for nuanced performances under difficult circumstances.
One of my favourite films at TIFF 2012, Kon-Tiki doesn’t make the voyage to cinemas unscathed. A large chunk of Heyerdahl’s shore-based travails, juggling aspirations with married life, gets cut adrift.
It means that his wife and research partner Liv (Agnes Kittelsen), who plays a substantial role in the early part of the film, appearing to give him the radical idea that leads to the Kon-Tiki expedition in the first place, disappears abruptly before he sets sail.
But sometimes European and art house moviemakers have to toss a few things overboard if they want their efforts to play with American audiences and bring their movie home in a crowd-pleasing sub-two hours.