This remarkable film easily fits on the same shelf with the finest early documentaries, such as Nanook of the North, Silent Enemy and Man of Aran, whose aim was to capture on film ways of life that were in the process of passing away and now no longer exist. What sets this one apart from the others is that in this film there was a real effort to achieve authenticity and not to create a false (even if "true in spirit") narrative as a backdrop for the plot. In all of the other films mentioned there was a fairly substantial artificiality to the story that was used to retain interest in the material (i.e. they show natives engaging in activities that they no longer engage in, or that they rarely engage in; they set up little dramas; this is something that Schoedsack and Cooper found they needed to do for the success of their next film: Chang; but here they tried to be more naturalistic). In this case, there are two narratives that undergird the document: the story of Schoedsack and Cooper themselves (who remain for the most part in the background) and of the woman who accompanied them (Marguerite Harison); the second is the story of the tribal leader and his young son who will someday take the mantel of the father and lead the villagers along the same journey. While there is some staging of these "stories," it is less complex than in the other films and retains a ring of authenticity -- the boy really will have to become a leader and the crew really did make it across (it is also interesting to note that they include a mark of the authenticity of their journey in the film by filming a signed affidavit from a local authority that they had in fact completed the trek). The real "heroes" of the story, whose actions could not be faked, were the tribe as a whole who had to walk barefoot over snowy mountains to bring their animals to pasture.
In addition to a compelling portrait of a passing way of life, which is full of poignant and witty intertitles and small moments that humanize the massive scope of the operation, the film has a subtext which is to remind American audiences that they have "gone soft" -- that they have lost the hardiness of their pioneer ancestors and that these living people retain it. This is a message that Schoedsack and Cooper remind us of in their subsequent fictional masterpiece: King Kong.
