Janson Media’s new DVD, Kon-Tiki: Collector’s Edition, was highly recommended in a recent review by Educational Media Reviews Online. EMRO said, “Kon-Tiki’s premise seems as incredible today as it must have seemed in 1947 when Thor Heyerdahl and his crew made their journey: six people leave the shores of South America on a raft made out of balsawood with the aim of reaching Polynesia… For what is essentially a sixty-year-old, black and white, amateur home-movie, Kon-Tiki holds up extremely well… The production values are primitive by today’s standards, but the subject matter is fascinating. Between the comparatively tame details of life aboard the raft and the more dramatic encounters with whales, sharks, and gales… it is easy to see why Kon-Tiki won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. The extras are very good. In addition to some short color footage of the crew, a slideshow of photos, information on the crew, and an animated expedition map, there is also an hour long documentary on Thor Heyerdahl… Kon-Tiki is still a remarkable film. It would be suitable for collections supporting history, anthropology, and South American studies and is highly recommended.
Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO) is a database of video, DVD, audio CD and CD-ROM reviews of materials from major educational and documentary distributors and independent filmmakers. The reviews are written by librarians and teaching faculty in institutions across the United States and Canada.