This was documentarian Robert Flaherty's final film. It was well regarded upon its release, but many modern viewers have huge problems with the ethically dubious way it was made.
The film depicts a Cajun boy and his pet raccoon who live a mostly idyllic life in a Louisiana bayou, save for the odd dangerous encounter with an alligator. His father allows an oil company to drill in the inlet by their house and the boy is fascinated by the rig crew.
Flaherty had always staged his documentaries right from his first film Nanook of the North and that in itself is problematic. This film takes things further and doesn't present anything that particularly resembles reality. The three members of the family were not related and there's no real attempt to show Cajun life or culture. The film, especially the opening credits, does suggest this is a work of fiction but the whole thing is made in a documentary style and doesn't really resemble a narrative film at all.
The film was commissioned by an oil company and so it depicts an oil rig arriving, the crew being really friendly (never mind that even in the 1940s they didn't let barefoot kids wander around oil rigs), the family getting lots of money from it and the bayou left pristine when they leave. It is then little more than a propaganda film for oil companies and does not attempt to even suggest that some people might not like what they are doing. Throw in a bit of animal cruelty for no real reason and you have a morally appalling film.
I don't even think it's that well done. It's largely a tedious film with no proper plot or conflict. Inexplicably this won 'Best Script' at the Oscars despite there being very little stuff that is properly scripted and that stuff not being very good. It's also delivered terribly as the cast were not professional actors.
You can see hints of Flaherty's talent at times. The bayou is shot beautifully and filming it must have been tricky with a 40s camera. There's also a great score by Virgil Thomson, the best thing about the film by miles, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the only film score ever to do so.
One of those films that deserves to be lost to the annals of history.
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