Kon-Tiki (2012)
THE SCOOP
Director: Joachim Rønning & Espen Sandberg
Cast: Pål Sverre Hagen, Anders Baasmo Christiansen,Gustaf Skarsgård
Plot: Legendary explorer Thor Heyerdal's epic 4,300-mile crossing of the Pacific on a balsawood raft in 1947, in an effort prove that it was possible for South Americans to settle in Polynesia in pre-Columbian times.
Genre: Adventure / History
Awards: Nom. for 1 Oscar - Best Foreign Language Film
Runtime: 118min
Rating: PG13 for a disturbing violent sequence.
IN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)
“And
only a hundred days to go.”
The actor
who plays Thor Heyerdahl looks like a cross between Ryan Gosling and the late
James Stewart, not that it matters because after more than one hundred days
aboard a raft, he is reduced to a hair-full of a face.
In Kon-Tiki, a Norwegian feature that
earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, the epic voyage of
Thor is recounted, but perhaps told in such a straightforward fashion that all unpredictabilities
are fed to the sharks. It is a
conventional adventure with familiar underpinnings that works as a triumphant
ode to the human spirit... if you allow it to.
As you may already sense it, the film didn't quite do it for me.
In order to
prove that the South Americans first landed on the Polynesian Islands rather
than the Asians, Thor attempts to sail (though not alone) across the Pacific on
a naturally-built raft from Peru to those islands.
Call him
insane or... showboating, but what he did was recorded in the history books,
and was the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary, which is also called Kon-Tiki (1950). It is of course contentious if everything
that happened in this dramatization of the voyage did actually occur, but that
is beside the point. The point is to
marvel at the feat.
The
direction from Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg is assured, and coupled with
the quite stunning cinematography, Kon-Tiki
is a visual delight. Of course, there is
the use of visual effects, but technology has now caught up with the
possibilities of photorealism that it is very difficult to discern which parts
are shot or created. But that does not
kill the fun in viewing the film, which is exciting and suspenseful because the
voyage is wrought with constant danger (sharks and waves galore!).
The
performances are uniformly good, and the actors are conversant in English,
which by the way isn’t dubbed. You see,
the filmmakers took the unusual step of shooting the film in two languages –
Norwegian and English.
Survival in
the ocean seems to be trending in the last couple of years with films such as
the high-profile Life of Pi (2012) by
director Lee Ang, and All is Lost (2013)
starring Robert Redford, making their way to the cinemas.
Kon-Tiki
is similar (yet different) to those films.
The men onboard the raft made the decision to partake in the voyage in
the name of science. They have to live
with the consequences of their decision.
In sum, being marooned in the high seas is indescribably frightening, so
Tom Hanks ought to count himself lucky in Cast
Away (2000). Well, sort of.
GRADE: B-
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