Watch The White Dawn For Free

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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.

1896: A motley trio of whalers -- gruff, hostile, alcoholic third-mate Billy (a wonderfully crotchety Warren Oates), gentle, humane cabin boy Daggett (a lovely, moving performance by Timothy Bottoms), and fidgety harpooner Portagee (the always fine Lou Gossett) -- get stranded in the Artic after their boat crashes against some ice. The threesome are rescued by and subsequently adopted into a tribe of friendly, helpful, religious Eskimos. Everything goes well for a while. However, the whalers' assimilation into the tribe and its customs proves to be quite rocky: they assist the Eskimos in hunting seals, sleep with numerous Eskimo women, engage in wrestling matches and knife throwing contests, are marked as bearers of bad tidings by a powerful Eskimo medicine man after a series of misfortunes befall the tribe, and make a fruitless attempt at getting back to civilization by stealing an Eskimo boat (they also swipe some fish as well). Eventually the whalers' opposing cultural backgrounds and differing ethical beliefs cause them to have a fierce, bitter dispute with the tribe, which in turn begets violent, tragic consequences for the unsuspecting trio."The White Dawn" works superbly on two levels: 1) a rousing, rugged, totally plausible and absorbing braving the elements action/adventure feature which gives the viewer a tasteful, thoughtful, utterly fascinating look at a unique, intriguing culture that's for the most part grossly ignored and under-explored in cinema and 2) a trenchant, ultimately ironic examination of the fear, ignorance and ridiculous superstitions which are key components of racism and, more revealingly, significant reasons for why distinct cultures can and do clash. Assuredly directed with a clear, sharp eye for minute details by Phillip Kaufman, astutely written by James Houston and Tom Rickman, gorgeously photographed in stunning panoramic scope by Michael Chapman and scored with appropriate elegance and majestic orchestral sweep by Henry Mancini, this cracking good yarn sizes up as a colorful, enthralling and very provocative little knockout.

have some respect for and knowledge of tribal cultures where the shamans have authority, the people are "tuned in" to the natural world, and "nature magic" is understood on a gut level by everyone from childhood onward. I saw this film many years ago and loved it; it's still excellent. If you like it, you may want to read "The Heart of the Hunter" by Laurens Van Der Post, a classic about the Bushmen in South Africa. This film will be of value to anyone who has someone in their family who's made a mess of his or her life because of alcohol. Grab the drinker and make him or her watch it and that person may get a sense for how destructive that behavior is. Anyone who wants to learn about the Bear Spirit will learn something here as well.