Man From Aran

Director: Robert Flaherty

Starring: Colman "Tiger" King, Maggie Durraine, Michael Durraine
Year: 1931

A fictional "documentary" depicting life on the Aran Islands off the western coast of Ireland. It portrays characters who live in premodern conditions and their hardships, documenting their daily routines such as fishing off high cliffs, farming potatoes where there is little soil, and hunting for huge basking sharks to win their liver oil for lamps.

After living two-and-a-half years on the Arans, Flaherty (the director) was able to convince local residents to act in his film through equal parts cajolery, a priest's assurance that the boy wouldn't be made into a Protestant, the promise of payment, and a hard-hitting local brew known as potheen.

Third in the corpus of Flaherty's four major films, Man of Aran is preceded by Nanook of the North (1922), Moana (1926), and is followed by Louisiana Story (1948).

Comments: A beautiful film like a visual poem.

Recommended.