The two versions of six men on a float

Six men spend three months on a raft, drifting across the ocean where the wind and waves will carry them. Day in and day out. They don’t encounter any substantial danger; they don’t blow up against each other; they don’t go nuts. Nothing of interest happens apart from the growing of their beards, at a pace and intensity that makes you wonder if it’s a condition similar to the one the Thompson brothers go through in one of the Tintin albums.

This is the concept of the Norwegian feature film Kon-Tiki, which for reasons that are inexplicable to me managed to get nominated for the Best foreign picture category at the Oscars. I don’t even quite understand why the movie was made at all.

It’s not that I have anything against the Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl, whose life this movie is based on. In fact he’s been an important presence in my life for as long as I can remember. My grandparents used to own of his books about various expeditions and my parents had them too. As I remember it, his name was constantly referred to in dinner conversations between my father and grandfather and I think I’ve inherited some of this interest for Heyerdahl’s adventures.

I remember especially how Fatu-Hiva, the story about how Heyerdahl and his wife left civilization in order to live on a remote island for over a year made a huge impression on me and my husband when we were in our twenties. It took me years after I had read it to fully realize what a squishy and armchair adventurer I am in reality, not at all fit for spending long periods out in the wilderness.

Did little for me
Considering this background, I was a little surprised at how little the 2012 version of Kon-Tiki did for me. Maybe I should have predicted it. The thing is that the raft expedition, arranged in 1947 in order to verify that the inhabitants of Polynesia had originated from South America rather than Asia, was almost as eventless as it was successful.

For being Norwegian, this is big budget movie, but you can only create ever so much tension in a story that contains almost no conflict or threat. The biggest excitement we have is to find out if Heyerdahl’s wife will forgive him for leaving her at home with the kids to look after while he’s travelling the world. And sadly this doesn’t suffice for bringing life into this dish. After spending an hour in company with the bearded guys on the float, it’s getting slow – and then you’re only halfway through it.

The documentary film
So the 2012 version of Kon-Tiki was a disappointment. There was one good thing about it though: it inspired me to watch the Oscar awarded documentary Kon-Tiki , which Thor Heyerdahl put together in the years after the expedition.

Made in 1950 it has some technical limitations. The film is in black and white and doesn’t only consist of moving pictures, but also contains some still images with voiceovers that make you think of educational films for schoolchildren. But this doesn’t matter, because it has something else that the 2012 Kon-Tiki film lacks: it’s authentic. When you know that the men on the raft are real and not actors and that you see exactly what they saw 65 years ago, it suddenly gets much more interesting and engaging.

Some stories from real life work are good material for feature films. But six men on a slowly drifting float is not such a story. On the other hand it makes for an excellent documentary. My advice is to go out of your way to watch Kon-Tiki – the 1950 documentary version.

Kon-Tiki (Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg, NO 2012) My rating: 3/5
Kon-Tiki (Thor Heyerdahl, NO 1950) My rating: 4/5