3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, and needlessly, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang
Thor Heyerdahl’s Oscar-winning
1950 documentary about his famed ocean voyage was a frequent attraction during
my grade school and middle school years; I must have seen it at least three
times before hitting my teens.
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| Enraged by the constant presence of the always dangerous sharks, Torstein (Jakob Oftebro, left) and Knut (Tobias Santelmann) foolishly decided to kill one of the predatory creatures. |
I also read Heyerdahl’s published
account of the expedition — 1948’s Kon-Tiki:
Across the Pacific in a Raft — and noted that articles about him were
fairly common in National Geographic
in the 1960s and early ’70s (which is deliciously ironic, given the magazine’s
initial refusal to treat him seriously).
I therefore approached the new
dramatized account of Heyerdahl’s 101-day journey on a balsa wood raft —
Norway’s recent nominee for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award (losing to
Austria’s Amour) — like a reunion
with a long-unseen friend. And, on that level, this new Kon-Tiki does not disappoint.
Directors Joachim Rønning and
Espen Sandberg have crafted a respectful, detail-laden account of Heyerdahl’s
voyage that plays very much like a valentine: quite similar to the
family-friendly tone Brian Helgeland gives Jackie Robinson’s story, in 42. This worshipful atmosphere is
amplified by the almost saintly aura that star Pål Sverre Hagen gives his reading
of Heyerdahl; once granted the months-at-sea affectation of a scraggly beard,
and the Christ-like framing by cinematographer Geir Hartly Andreassen, we
almost expect a halo to appear over Hagen’s head.
OK,
so Heyerdahl’s messianic qualities are larded on rather thickly, but I suppose
we can forgive everybody concerned; after all, the famed explorer remains one
of Norway’s most cherished native sons.
The
performances are heartfelt and credible, and the film certainly captures both
the adventurous spirit and eventual doubts experienced by Heyerdahl and his
five companions, as the journey progresses. But scripter Petter Skavlan is much
better at back-story and laying the groundwork for the Kon-Tiki’s trip, than in
conveying the day-after-grinding-day reality of their experiences, once the
raft is launched.
On
top of which, several sequences feel like Hollywood-ized peril, clearly
exaggerated for dramatic impact. Such moments give the film an embroidered,
boys-own-adventure aura: unfortunate, when an unvarnished depiction of these
events should have been sufficiently absorbing.
