May2013_MOVIE REVIEW

Kon-Tiki

By Gemma Schuhmann

Kon-Tiki is the true story of Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl (Pål Sverre Hagen) who set out to prove his theory that Peruvians, not Asians were the first people to settle Polynesia.

In 1947 Thor made a balsa wood raft using only materials the Peruvians would have used.  He then drifted for 101 days with five men across the Pacific Ocean in the hope that the raft would hit Polynesia.

This film is incredible.  It’s almost hard to believe that it’s a true story.  Thankfully back in 1947 they took a camera with them and recorded everything.  They then turned it into an Oscar winning documentary.  However true the story is, the filmmakers did dramatize and alter some characters and key moments, but almost every scene has an essence of truth to it. One scene for example is when a whale shark swims under the raft.  After a while one of them harpoons it out of terror, which leads to dramatic events.  It’s one of those scenes where you wonder whether it actually happened or not.  But it did.  The real footage is on the internet as proof.  Obviously it’s not as nearly as exciting as the movie version.

The visual effects for this film are brilliant.  Rather than using studios with huge tanks of water the film crew actually went out to sea and used real locations.  The huge effort to film in actual locations in nine different countries paid off.  The raft and actors look like they really are in the middle of the ocean, which is true to some degree.  In some scenes they did use a tank and it is very easy to see when they have done that, mainly because the raft moves in a different way.  Also to have the actual sun high over head or setting just looks stunning.  That sort of light cannot be replicated in a studio. Take ‘Life of Pi’ for example, most of that was filmed in a studio and it looks good, but it is nothing compared to the real thing.  It’s great to see a film that treasures physical in-camera effects over computer generated ones.

The odd thing about this movie is that there are two versions. One was nominated for an Oscar and the other wasn’t.  Here in Australia we get the non Oscar one.  What they did was film the movie in two languages, English and Norwegian. While shooting they did a few takes in Norwegian, then in English and again in Norwegian.  Since they were both shot at the same time it means they are virtually the same film. However only the Norwegian one was nominated because the English version is still yet to be released in America.

Kon-Tiki is a thrilling adventure that is unbelievably true.

4.5 stars