Ra (documentary)

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Movie
German title Ra
Original title Ra
Country of production Norway , Sweden
original language Norwegian , English
Publishing year 1971
length 106 minutes
Rod
Director Lennart Ehrenborg (design) ,
Thor Heyerdahl (recordings at sea)
production Lennart Ehrenborg,
Thor Heyerdahl
music Ed Norton
camera Carl Mauri ,
Kei Ohara
cut Bengt Gunnar Eriksson
occupation
  • Thor Heyerdahl : the expedition leader
  • Norman Baker: the navigator
  • Yuri Senkevich: the doctor
  • Carlo Mauri: the cameraman
  • Santiago Genovés: the stock keeper
  • Abdullah Djibrine: the papyrus expert
  • Georges Sourial: the underwater expert
Model replica of the Ra I in the Kon-Tiki Museet in Oslo .
The original “Ra II” in the Kon Tiki-museet.

Ra is a Norwegian-Swedish documentary directed by Lennart Ehrenborg . In 1969 and 1970, the film accompanies the Norwegian explorer, archaeologist, anthropologist and ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl on two expedition trips across the Atlantic in a papyrus and a reed boat . The film ran in Germany as a two-part TV series on April 9 and 12, 1971.

action

Thor Heyerdahl

Heyerdahl's intention, since his adventurous Kon-Tiki Pacific raft trip in 1947, was a highly regarded, albeit not undisputed, explorer on this Atlantic voyage from Morocco to Barbados in the Caribbean , to prove that it would be possible to use a twelve-meter boat from papyrus to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The departure took place on May 25, 1969 in Safi, Morocco. The boat "Ra", which gave the film the title and was named in honor of the Egyptian sun god, was, like the equipment on board, a replica of ancient Egyptian models. Heyerdahl used clay pots to store the food he needed. The background and purpose of this daring passage Heyerdahl was to prove that theoretically the ancient Egyptians - thousands of years before Christopher Columbus - could have discovered the American continent. “Almost all experts thought that was impossible. The reed boat turned out to be astonishingly robust - and yet the experiment got out of control ”, as Der Spiegel recalled in a review in 2019 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of this experiment.

From the beginning, this voyage was highly controversial among experts: It was assumed that the boat built by locals in Egypt, for the manufacture of which a total of twelve tons of papyrus were required, could not possibly survive the crossing of the Atlantic, which is known for its rough seas. Heyerdahl deliberately put together his team from all over the world in order to underline the intercultural feel of his mission and to demonstrate that people work together free of nationalisms and ideologies. Heyerdahl's companions came from the United States (the navigator Norman Baker), the Soviet Union (the doctor Yuri Senkewitsch), Mexico (the store manager Santiago Genovés), Egypt (the underwater expert Georges Sourial), Italy (the cameraman and photographer Carlo Mauri) and the Chad (the papyrus expert Abdullah Djibrine). Other passengers were the Safi monkey (named after the starting point in Morocco), which was only supposed to serve as entertainment, as well as a cage with chickens and a duck. The peaceful, unifying intent of the daring mission was underscored by the fact that it sailed under the UN flag.

As Ehrenborg's film shows, this first "Ra" trip was not a lucky star: First you struggled with the persistent calm, then one of the oars broke early. Further broken rudders on the high seas meant that these single control systems had to be constantly repaired. “At the end of the day, a big problem also turned out to be a detail on the ancient Egyptian drawings,” as the mirror recalled at the same point, “which the designers couldn't figure out - and therefore left it out: It was a rope that came from the tip of the Stern was stretched to the center of the ship. It was only when the stern got out of shape and sagged at sea that Heyerdahl recognized the stabilizing function. ”Before the second trip of the twelve-ton Ra, this error was eliminated. In June and July 1969 the "Ra I" got into heavy seas, which led to severe damage to the ship, which made the "Ra" no longer appear seaworthy. When the second rudder broke, the crew on board was finally unable to maneuver. Heyerdahl broke off the experiment on July 18, 1969. The risk was too great, and eventually the Ra I sank in the waters of the Atlantic. The crew were picked up from a US yacht and safely brought ashore.

By the second start of the expedition in May 1970, almost exactly a year after the unsuccessful first expedition, Heyerdahl had a second papyrus ship built. This “Ra II”, this time built by Indios from Lake Titicaca , who have extensive experience in building reed boats, no longer had the weaving defects of the first ship. This trip is also part of the documentary Lennart Ehrenborgs. The new boat was three meters shorter, lighter and overall more stable than the first "Ra". After more than 6000 kilometers and 57 days, the team reached Barbados - without a "single papyrus stem tearing or breaking", as Heyerdahl later emphasized.

Nominations and Awards

  • Heyerdahl, who acts as the narrator in the original version, and Ehrenborg earned Ra an Oscar nomination in 1972 in the category Best Full-Length Documentary .
  • The film received awards in 1971 at festivals in Trento (“Nettuno d'oro”) and Milan (Festival Prize).

reception

  • Allmovie.com says, “Thor Heyerdahl's adventures in Kon-Tiki and The Ra Expeditions proved it can, and now the idea is no longer considered unusual at all. Oddly enough, Heyerdahl's reputation has not become more respectable in the meantime. Nonetheless, this documentary about his journey in a rough papyrus raft from Morocco to the Caribbean is entertaining and illuminating. As the film… shows, there was considerable doubt that Heyerdahl and his eight-man crew would survive, much less that they would make it to their goals. "
  • Leonard Maltin called the film "an exciting documentary" and "a follow-up to" Kon-Tiki ""

Individual evidence

  1. "Now we are really castaways" . Report in Der Spiegel on May 29, 2019
  2. ^ Ra in the Swedish film database
  3. ↑ Brief review on allemovie.com
  4. Short criticism in Leonard Maltins 2015 Movie Guide. The Modern Era. New York 2014

Web links