Moana (1926)
Robert Flaherty is one of those filmmakers whose reputation rests almost entirely on a handful of films made across a relatively short window, yet whose influence on documentary cinema is almost impossible to overstate. His debut feature, Nanook of the North (1922), established a model for location-based, observational filmmaking that would echo through the decades, even as scholars have spent much of that time arguing about how "observational" it really was. Moana, arriving four years later in 1926 and co-directed with his wife and frequent collaborator Frances H. Flaherty, was the intended follow-up, produced under the Paramount umbrella via their own small production company. Flaherty spent around two years living in Samoa with his family and a small crew, shooting on panchromatic film stock (a relatively new choice at the time, and one that gave the images their distinctive tonal richness). The resulting film sits in genuinely interesting territory: part ethnographic record, part poetic reverie, part staged performance dressed up as observed reality. It is a work that raises questions about the nature of documentary truth that the form has been wrestling with ever since.
The cultural weight of the film is considerable, even if its reception has become more complicated over time. It was the critic John Grierson who, reviewing Moana in 1926, first used the word "documentary" in the sense we now use it, calling the film a "documentary value." That alone would be enough to secure the film's place in any serious history of cinema. The Samoan setting gave Flaherty the visual warmth and sensory richness he was clearly drawn to, a world of communal ritual, physical labour, and coming-of-age ceremony, all filtered through what one might fairly call a romanticised, outsider's gaze. The cast, drawn entirely from local Samoan people including Ta'avale, Fa'amgase, Tama, Tu'ugaita, and Pe'a, were not professional performers in any conventional sense, and the film presents their daily life and traditions as a kind of living poetry. For anyone interested in the intersection of Pacific Islander culture and early cinema, it makes an interesting companion piece to more recent works like The Orator and Vai, both of which approach Polynesian identity and community from the inside rather than through an external lens.
As a piece of production craft for its era, Moana is polished but unremarkable in narrative terms, though visually it carries a painterly quality that still registers. The panchromatic stock renders skin tones and foliage with a softness that 35mm orthochromatic film of the period rarely achieved, and certain images, coconut palms against open sky, bodies moving through surf, have a compositional elegance that sits comfortably alongside Flaherty's other location-based work. His Louisiana Story, made over two decades later in 1948, shows how little his instincts changed: the same patient, often beautiful attention to physical environment and local life, the same somewhat uneasy relationship with the line between record and reconstruction. Whether that consistency reads as artistic integrity or creative limitation rather depends on what you want from the form.
It’s crazy to think that Robert and Frances H. Flaherty’s Moana is a full century old. Watching this 1926 silent film today, you realise you’re looking at what is widely considered the very first "mockumentary", or at least the first film to frame a narrative as a documentary. The Flahertys travelled to Samoa to capture the daily lives, chores, and tasks of the local tribal people. But while it’s presented as a factual record of island life, it’s heavily staged and acted by the locals. It’s a fascinating piece of cinematic history, but that’s very much the operative word: history.
As an actual movie, however, it’s a tough sell for a modern audience. The vast majority of the runtime is just watching the cast go about their daily routines like fishing, climbing trees, preparing food. I get that the intention was to preserve and showcase a specific way of life, and in that regard, it does exactly what it sets out to do. But sitting there today, watching a silent, black-and-white film of people just doing their chores? It is honestly incredibly hard to stay interested. There’s no real narrative drive, no character arcs, just a series of beautifully composed, yet entirely mundane, vignettes.
Ultimately, Moana is far better appreciated as a historical curio than as a piece of entertaining cinema. It’s a vital, pioneering text for documentary filmmakers and a beautiful time capsule of 1920s Samoa, but it lacks the cinematic glue to keep a casual viewer engaged. It earns its keep purely for its groundbreaking place in film history and the sheer logistical achievement of making it a hundred years ago.
It’s a respectable, visually striking pioneer, but unless you’re a hardcore film student, you’ll likely find yourself checking your watch long before the end credits roll.
Moana occupies an odd space in the canon: revered by scholars, rarely watched for pleasure, and almost impossible to evaluate purely on its own terms without the weight of what it represents pressing down on every frame. For viewers who have spent time with slow, contemplative cinema, something like Memoria perhaps, there may be enough texture to hold the attention. For most, though, it is likely to remain a film talked about more than actually watched. There is nothing wrong with that, exactly. Some films earn their place in history simply by existing at the right moment, asking the right questions, and pointing a camera somewhere it had never quite pointed before. Moana did all of that. It just does not make it easy to sit through on a Tuesday evening.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 1926 | Watched: 2026-06-18
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Moana (1926) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: HBO Max
Physical: Amazon US
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