Two oil workers in Robert Flaherty’s “Louisiana Story” are standing on the rig looking out over a river in a deep south bayou. A boy slowly approaches in a small canoe, and when he gets within viewing distance holds up a monstrous catfish he claims to have caught all on his own.
“What kind of bait did you use to catch such a big catfish,” the riggers call out.
“It’s not the bait.”
Flaherty’s docudrama about the Louisiana bayou succeeds because it is an idyllic slice of life using real residents instead of professional actors and on-location settings that gives the whole film a documentary realistic quality. At only 78 minutes long and without much dialogue to support a real story, it really isn’t the bait.
It’s the story of a boy living in the bayou whose life changes when an oil company raises a massive rig to drill in the river that surrounds their home. We see the boy hunting and exploring in the swamp and becoming fascinated both by the world’s natural beauty and the other-worldly sounds and imagery of the oil rig.
Flaherty has in modern times come to be known as the father of documentaries thanks to his film “Nanook of the North,” and “Louisiana Story,” his last film, has been mistaken as such. But the scenarios themselves are constructed and fictional, only attaining authenticity with Flaherty’s often startling style.
Throughout much of the film set in the swamplands, Flaherty removes any and all natural sound and allows the images to speak for themselves in a virtual silent film. So we’re riveted purely by the sights of a crocodile slowly stalking a crane and then seeing it again later with a bird leg sticking out of its mouth or by the quick edits and the aggressive thrashing captured when the boy sets a trap for the crocodile and fights it in revenge for eating his pet raccoon Jojo.
And yet this approach is the exact opposite when Flaherty takes us onto the oil rig. No score accompanies the deafening roar of chains flying or gears moving in workman like precision. Critics have complained that because “Louisiana Story” was commissioned by Standard Oil that the film is not as hard on the effects of oil drilling as it could be (despite that the environment would hardly be a topic of concern in 1948), but the film’s noticeable difference in tone is somehow unsettling from the otherwise peaceful imagery of the swamp.
We see in this film a boy who, although he goes looking for trouble by fighting crocodiles and climbing dangerous oil rigs, is really just trying to do good. The film’s morality and fascination with the real world make “Louisiana Story” an engaging slice of life.