Kon-Tiki

Though Kon-Tiki was a nominee for last year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language film from Norway, the version I saw was entirely in English. That's because the makers of the film shot two versions, figuring (correctly, unfortunately) that the film would do much better business if people didn't have to read subtitles. In any event, no matter what language, it's a fun, old-fashioned adventure.

The story is that of Thor Heyerdahl's, the ethnographer who theorized that Polynesia was not settled by Asians from the west, but South Americans from the east. The problem, as he discovers, is that no one thinks the South Americans of the time had sea-worthy enough boats to make the voyage, which is 5,000 miles (unanswered but also a good question is why they would make the trip in the first place). So Heyerdahl, along with a few friends, decides to build a balsa-wood raft, using only materials available to the ancients, and prove that it can be done.

This is a famous story and indeed, a documentary that Heyerdahl and crew made themselves won an Oscar for Best Documentary in 1951 (the voyage was made in 1947). I don't know if there was a cry for another take on the tale, but this film, directed by Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, is an almost constant joy to watch. After beginning with a prologue that shows a young Heyerdahl as a risk taker, we jump to his idyllic days living on a Polynesian island, along with his wife, where he first gets his idea. Then we jump to after the war, when no one will take him seriously, and he scrapes together the money for his voyage.

He takes along five fellow Scandinavians, one of who is a refrigerator salesman who goes simply because of the adventure and his belief in Heyerdahl. Indeed, Heyerdahl (played by Pal Hagen) is something of a zealot on the subject, and whose answer to any problem is "have faith." But he isn't an Ahab, and it's easy to see how he kept the expedition together, even through dark times.

And there are plenty of them. At first, the boat is off course (they are relying on the currents that the early Americans would have used). When he tells his navigator to have faith, the reply is, "I have faith, but I also have a sextant." They also deal with storms, a curious whale, and a lot of sharks. The refrigerator salesman (Anders Baasmo Christiansen) starts to lose his mind, and begs Heyerdahl to lash the logs together with wire, but Heyerdahl throws the offending metal into the sea, seemingly dooming everyone on board.

Of course, as history attests, they will succeed, and Heyerdahl becomes world famous (although anthropologists still aren't sure of his thesis).

The film, shot in gorgeous locations, does a remarkable job of showing what folly this all looked like--the distance they were traveling was the equal of Chicago to Moscow--and the vastness of the ocean. A shot that pulls from the men looking into the stars all the way up into the heavens shows how insignificant we all are. We also see, perhaps for the only time, a shark eating a parrot.

This is the kind of film that doesn't seem to be made any more--the story of daring-do, with men with long beards, their sun-kissed hair whipping in the breeze. Maybe we're too cynical for it now, but it's nice to be reminded of different times.