A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

I saw this film last year at the Chicago International Film Festival with Philip Kaufman and Prof. Annette Insdorf presenting and I was totally blown away. It is both a beautiful love story between a white man and an Inuit woman and a big, spectacular adventure film. There are some amazing scenes, one involving polar bear (this scene alone is amazing and worth seeing the film for) , seal hunting, walrus hunting, boating in the treacherous ice-floes, etc. The performances are excellent from Timothy Bottoms , Warren Oates, Louis Gosset, Jr. and the wonderful actors of the Inuit community. The film continually takes your breath away and has some of the most beautiful love scenes I've ever seen. It's apparently based on a true story of the first encounter of the Inuit with the Dog Children (us). The film has some heartbreaking scenes (which I won't discuss) and the acting by the untrained Inuit actors is truly spectacular. I can't recommend this film enough.

It's May 1896. Three whale hunters Billy, Daggett and Portagee crash their small fishing boat into an ice flow off the coast of Baffin Island in the Arctic Circle and are the only three survivors when a tribe of Eskimos come to their rescue. These Eskimos have never seen creatures like this and welcome (what they refer to as 'dog children') to their isolated community. They share everything important to them, but supposedly their arrival is a bad omen and western pleasures have found their way in. Which disrupts the Eskimos' spiritual lifestyle greatly. What an enthralling pleasure and rather moving (and as well bleak) behavioural portrait of traditional customs and the survival of a 'primitive' race through the naive eyes of 'civilised' western men. Based on a true account. This Hollywood adventure exercise is beautifully implemented from James Huston's novel, which he also penned the thoughtfully sensitive screenplay. It's not really trying to force any sort ecological message onto the viewer, but creating a narrative that shows sometimes people take the simple things in life for granted. Instead of accepting what they got, they disrespect a way of life that they'll never understand and this will cause their own downfall. After obliging them, after one selfish act after another. Eventually both sides are at bitter odds with each other towards the end and the final straw leaves good old reasoning between the two ethnics behind close doors. It all comes down to survival in the end and removing the bad seeds. The dog children learn it the hard way.While the three guests (played by Warren Oates, Timothy Bottoms and Lou Gossett Jr.) are rather simple in their backgrounds, but their emotional bonds and interactions with each other and their surrogate guardians show just who they really are. We even get an informative look into the Intuits' way of life. The austerely imitating nature of the film is made more possible by its genuinely alienating and vastly eerie (but pristine) locations that are spaciously shot with great finesse by photographer Michael Chapman. You can feel the cold discomfort in the air. Harry Mancini's wistful music score has such an ominous howl that blends well with its gleeful side. Philip Kaufman direction is sturdily done and totally convicted to the story he wants to show. He demonstrates some disturbing scenes of cunningly swift, but also brutal violence (especially towards animals with the latter). Look out those easily offended by that. The pacing is deliberately slow to show the simple, no fuss routine of a culture being formed and to build up to its stirringly tragic conclusion. The performances from the Intuits are naturally quite good and they are subtitled for the occasion. Well, its better then being dubbed… now that wouldn't work at all. An excellent Warren Oates makes for one scuffed-up, self-seeking old sea dog, named Billy. At times his crusty performance very much reminded of Captain Haddock. A character form Herge's comic stories of "The Adventures of TinTin". Timothy Bottoms is outstanding in the most spiritually aware and humane role of the three, as Daggett. Finally rounding it off, is a sterling turn by Louis Gossett Jr. as the happy-go-lucky, Portagee. Simply put, this remarkably haunting and significantly logical film still proves a point as much now, as it did when released. Recommended.

Looking back from the 21st century, it is obvious that from the moment Columbus set foot in the new world the indigenous peoples of the Americas were doomed. It is equally obvious to a thoughtful viewer from 2005 that a movie made in 1973 about three shipwrecked whalers who are rescued by a band of Inuit and the resulting culture clash is going to end in tragedy. I knew the conclusion of "The White Dawn" as soon as I read two sentences of it's description on Netflix.But we shouldn't really hold that against it. Because "The White Dawn" is a very good movie and I am shocked that more movie aficionados haven't heard of it. I never did, and I am a fan of Philip Kaufman and Timothy Bottoms and movies of the 70s, and I have an interest in the arctic. This movie seems to have been buried under a rock somewhere, despite fine performances all around, beautiful cinematography and direction, and fascinating subject matter in the Eskimos.Filmed on location on Baffin Island in what is now Nunavet, the Inuit territory of Northern Canada, "The White Dawn" portrays the story of the three whalers - Timothy Bottoms, Louis Gossett Jr, and Warren Oates as they live with a sympathetic and friendly Inuit band over the course of a year, and how ultimately the interaction of the two world views leads to tragedy. It is based on the novel of the same name by James Houston, who lived with the Inuit for many years and based his novel on stories handed down through the generations of an actual event of 1897. In a fine performance, Bottoms is sensitive and open to the Eskimo way of life, falling in love with the woman Neevee. On the other hand is arrogant and exploitive Oates, who comes to represent the worst of "civilized" man's attitudes towards the Eskimo. He is dramatically counterbalanced by the equally manipulative Inuit Shaman, who pronounces that the whalers are bringing evil to the band of Eskimos.While the ending might seem preordained, "The White Dawn" is full of texture as it examines the meeting of cultures. And beyond the story itself, it is full of vivid and powerful images of Eskimo life, presented with apparently absolute realism by the amateur (but very good) Inuit cast. The joys and sorrows of the native's communal life are conveyed as they travel and hunt through the seasons. The highlights of the movie include a seal hunt, later a more desperate walrus hunt, and a winter dance in a large igloo, featuring the strange and wonderful throat chanting of two Inuit girls.A note for animal lovers - according to the commentary track, while seals and walruses were killed in filming, they were only killed if they would have been killed anyway, and the slain animals were completely utilized for food and fur by the Inuit (who do still hunt and rely on seals). The polar bear used in filming was not injured in any way.If you are a fan of the cinema of the 70s or movies in general, and are willing to accept the grim nature of the story, I highly recommend "The White Dawn". Certainly it should gain a wider audience and not be forgotten.

This little-known film of Philip Kaufman's is a look at a culture not seen much in films, that of the Innuit, or Eskimo people of Arctic Canada. Three whalers (Warren Oates, Timothy Bottoms and Louis Gosset Jr.) are stranded among them after a shipwreck. The year is 1896 but it could just as well be 1996 or 1796 as far as we can tell in this simple world where survival against nature is always the biggest concern. Surprisingly to me, the culture clash does not seem to be that great through most of the movie, and when it comes, it does so rather quickly. I think this makes for a less strong film but it's still an interesting one that really fascinates at times.Cinematographer Michael Chapman ('Raging Bull') provides some great shots of the Great White North and Henry Mancini's score is very nice also. Martin Ransohoff is usually known as a producer but co-wrote the script here with Thomas Rickman.