Moana

1926 · Directed by Robert J. Flaherty · 60 min · documentary film, drama film, silent film

★ 6.7/10 · 38 ratings on TMDB

Robert J. Flaherty’s follow-up to Nanook of the North shifts from the Arctic to the South Seas, portraying Samoan village life with a painterly eye. Blending ethnographic detail with a romanticized “Gauguin idyll,” the film celebrates daily rituals, communal traditions, and the passage into adulthood, suffused with what Flaherty called “pride of beauty, pride of strength.”