Coluna Claquete – May 19th, 2016 – Movie of the Week: “Nobody Wants the Night”

Newton Ramalho

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Movie of the Week: “Nobody Wants the Night”

I remember when I was a kid, we used to see explorers as heroes who traveled to distant places, exciting the imagination of ordinary people.Although these gentlemen have been really special, they hardly would have been successful without the support of ordinary people, who then were deliberately ignored and forgotten. A film that helps us to think about it is “Nobody Wants the Night,” directed by Catalan filmmaker Isabel Coixet.

In the film we follow the story of Josephine Peary, lived by magnificent French actress Juliette Binoche. Josephine was wife of the famous explorer Robert Peary, who made ​​several expeditions to the Arctic, always in search of the geographic North Pole.

Josephine was as adventurous as her husband, and also dominated by her husband’s obsession to reach the Pole.She has even accompanied her husband despite being pregnant, giving birth in full Arctic, and her daughter received the nickname “snow baby”.

In the early 20th century she went in search of her husband, who had ventured on another expedition. Contrary to the opinion of all the friends who lived in the area, she insisted on moving forward, even when winter was very close.

With great difficulty and loss of life and supplies, she arrived in an outpost where she decided to await the arrival of Peary – again against the advice of the local guide. The only person who stayed in place was Allaka (Rinko Kikuchi), a young Inuit.For the uninitiated, even if always been treated as “Eskimos”, the northern inhabitants of Canada prefer to be called Inuit.

Intrigued with that girl, Josephine discovered that Allaka had something in common with her, it was the explorer himself! At begining, the coexistence was difficult, but with the arrival of winter, they were obliged to help each other. More than that, they have to feed and protect another person, because the girl was pregnant.

Life became impossible because the winter was very hard, with sun hiding for six months, and bringing terrible consequences.

The dramatization of the events had some poetic license, but brings out how the natives everywhere were regarded and treated by white explorers. Arrogant, disrespectful, and judging themselves masters of all, they had the sole purpose of their mission, even if to achieve it, I took the sacrifice of local people.

At a time when men dominated all the activities, it was common for women to be considered an accessory. The practice of arranging native companions were common, though – as actually happened – they and their children were deliberately forgotten, with the return of explorers to civilization.

Interestingly, the right arm of Peary was a black man, named Matthew Henson, who appears briefly in the current movie.Henson, whose life also inspired the movie “Glory & Honor,” despite having a vital role in Peary expeditions, spent decades being magisterially ignored.Henson also had an Inuit companion, as Peary, and as his master, he left everything behind to go home. In 1986, the Harvard Foundation researchers sought descendants of Peary and Henson and found the children of two, Kali and Anauakaq respectively.

One might think that this was the behavior of the past, but when we see the devastation that the “civilized man” causes in nature and people living in invaded environments, we see that the predatory behavior continues.

In such an intolerance environment that we live in, it’s always interesting to stop and think whether what we do is right, or if we are so brutalized that we do not realize what is our true role in this world of God.