I'm going to be completely honest up front. i didn't like this movie. when it said robert flaherty recorded in sound, i thought he would actually record sound. this sucked. yes, it was made during the archaic years of advented sound, bulky cameras, and 16mm. I should be appreciating the antiquity, or something like that.
I guess I'm coming from the background of someone who has been raised on hand held video cameras. I love the fluidity and applicable energy the camera brings to a scene in a documentary where we totally feel engaged in someone's life or activity. In Man of Aran, we are shown glimpses of their struggle from a very contrived perspective. Nothing is continuous within the scenes. It makes me unhappy to know how dramatized it is, which totally takes me out of the suspension of thinking this is the way these people live.
Don't get me wrong, I think the way these people live was incredible. My knowledge of Irish history is a bit more well developed than other areas, and I've been to the West Coast of Ireland, so I understand the living conditions to an extent. It is entirely rock. To think these people subsisted without soil on just plain rock for generations is astounding. But what struck me the most was the fact that during the time this was filmed, the mainland of Ireland was enduring a terrible time of war, occupation, and resistance. While these people of Aran struggle to live every day of their lives with the threat of the sea, they are only at war with Nature. They are not subjected to the atrocities of Man. Oliver Cromwell didn't occupy areas of the West for a reason; there was nothing redeeming about them. There was no economic value to rock. This bears the question, are the people of Aran better off?
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