Years before Robert Flaherty followed Nanook for his year in
Northeast Canada, Edward Curtis blended some Northwest Kwakwaka'wakw tales into
a melodramatic story that let him showcase the vanishing culture of this
people. In the Land of the Head Hunters has a predictably clichéd story,
but the visuals make the film worthwhile.
Curtis uses actual Kwakwaka'wakw actors, and he brings into the film an
outstanding number of ethnographic elements.
We see decorated Kwakwaka'wakw lodges, totems, big canoes, and costumes
like that of the wolf-dancer. Even the
story feels like it has authentic elements with the extraordinary brutality of Yaklus
as he murders people he happens on.
There’s much to appreciate in this film.
Unfortunately, the restoration of this film had to proceed from terribly
flawed sources, and the compromises imposed on the restorers limit its cinematic pleasure. Big sections of
the movie were apparently missing, so the action stops frequently as we linger
on a frozen frame that replaces the missing footage. This technique is a
reasonable compromise, but there are so many instances of the action freezing
that the film at times feels like a slideshow rather than a movie.
It’s a pity that there aren’t better elements to restore
this film from. The parts that are
intact show us that Head Hunters could be a far richer cinematic experience, though even in its present condition, it still has much to offer as a document of the unique, fading Kwakwaka'wakw
culture.
