MAN OF ARAN, 1934
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A fictional documentary examining the hardships faced by an island community living off the Western coast of Ireland.

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Robert J Flaherty was a film maker and pioneer of documentary who was fascinated by the eternal struggle between man and his environment. An American by birth, he had already achieved great acclaim for his films Nanook of the North and Moana before travelling to the British Isles in the early 1930s. He made a number of films in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with Man of Aran arguably the most famous of these.

Shot over a period of two years, Flaherty sought to document the life of a fishing community living on Aran Island, the largest of the many islands to be found dotted along Ireland's rugged West coast. The film follows one family in particular: the titular man, his wife and their young son. The inhabitants of the island are shown fishing, growing potatoes in the thin soil, and taking to sea in order to hunt a basking shark so that they might used the oil in its liver to fuel their lamps.

It is a striking story of survival in an unforgiving landscape. It is also largely fictional. Very little of what we see in Man of Aran could be described as a true documentary, at least not in the traditional sense. The family, for one, are not related to each other; Flaherty chose them for their photogenic appeal. The climactic shark hunting scenes are also a fallacy in a way. The practice of hunting basking sharks had died out many years prior, and the people of Aran Island had to be taught the method by an Inuit hired by the director. When it was released in 1934 many critics argued that it cast the people of the island in a poor light, depicting them as existing in a barely evolved, primitive society.

While it can be argued that this is, indeed, the case, one must also acknowledge the elements that make this film so remarkable. Colman "Tiger" King is a striking presence as the Man, and the rest of the community are similarly affecting. A lifetime spent under the freezing winds and rain of the Atlantic Ocean has made the community tough and hard working, and regardless of how modern developments might improve the quality of their lives, that is something which never truly changes. The cinematography, too, is simply breathtaking. Flaherty was clearly a man besotted with the rough beauty of Aran Island's rocky landscape. There is a keen eye behind the camera, able to draw out the wonder of the environment and contrast it perfectly with the individuals living on it.

While the most famous scenes, such as the shark hunt and a scene where the fishermen are seemingly lost in a gale, were fabricated solely for the benefit of the film, they nevertheless lose none of their power. It is perhaps unfair to accuse the director of constructing a narrative designed to play with our emotions; that is often the case with documentaries and always with films in general. Taken as a piece of docufiction, then, Man of Aran is excellent work.

After all, there isn't all that much difference between the fictional scenes included here and the dramatic reconstructions so often found in television and film. One could argue that the community and the film would have been better served if Robert Flaherty had stuck to the facts and presented an honest depiction of everyday life on Aran Island. But the director's interest always lay in the battle between man and nature, and with Man of Aran he set out to continue a study that had begun with Nanook of the North and which would continue for the rest of his life. His goal was not to show a society that is but rather a society that was, before it could be forgotten forever. As a historical document Man of Aran is an important film. Flaherty had a choice between the facts and the legend, and chose the latter, perhaps to the benefit of this piece.

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MAN OF ARAN