Kon-Tiki (2012)

I checked this out thinking it was the 1950 Oscar winning documentary. Little did I know that there was a more recent Oscar nominated feature film with the same title on the same subject. Thor Heyerdahl grabbed four other guys, built a raft, and decided to travel across the Pacific Ocean to prove that Norwegians populated Polynesia after getting kicked out of Peru. That whole concept feels a bit too yay white colonialism to me, particularly since the theory of a westerly migration is completely false and Thor had no idea what he was doing, not even knowing how to swim. Getting passed all that, it is really beautifully filmed with smooth CGI’ed animals and quite a bit of fraternal bonding. The stakes don’t feel particularly high, especially knowing that the documentary exists, but I’m still looking forward to seeing that film to compare the real life footage to this dramatization.

Oscar Nomination: Best Foreign Language Film of the Year