For me this movie is a winner because of the uncomplicated way in which it makes its point. The awesome sweeping landscapes and the isolation of the man are haunting. There is beautiful footage of wolves. In terms of film-making it does for the wolf what Peter Mathiessen's book The Snow Leopard did for the snow leopard, i.e. it gives them an aura of mystique. But there is enough reality check to balance that, and the point about the wilderness being invaded and exploited and changed by man is very subtly made. This is an underplayed film because it doesn't need drama; the landscape is enough.

I also can't resist a rejoinder to a quote another reviewer produced as follows : {Vilhjalmur Stefanson, a famed explorer, said, "An adventure is a sign of incompetence . . . If everything is well managed, if there are no miscalculations or mistakes, then the things that happen are only the things you expected to happen, for which you are ready and with which you can therefore deal."} .....

...To which, with due respect to Mr Stefanson, I would respond that on the contrary, true adventure occurs when something unplanned and unscripted takes place, when you happen upon a road you didn't know was there and take it, when something you do NOT expect happens and you experience and and learn from it. Mr
Stefanson may have been a great explorer, but by his own definition I doubt that he had much adventure, so he perhaps is not quite qualified enough to lecture on the nature of adventure - or if he did have adventure, he didn't see it as such, which is sad. Here's a take on him from Jon Krakauer : ''Stefanson was a guy who bragged that he never had adventures. He said that if you have an adventure, you're doing something wrong, that if you really plan things out in the vein of Amundsen, you don't have adventures. (Now, having said this, Stefanson relates sort of proudly how he almost got ambushed by a polar bear. Stefanson had plenty of adventures!)''

This film, in my opinion Carroll Ballard's best (he also directed The Black Stallion and Fly Away Home), is a visual feast. It has excellent performances from the entire (small) cast and is both funny and serious... even profound. There are some flaws, but in the face of the haunting score, the stunning cinematography, the well-honed script (much of it by the film's star, CM Smith), and the direction of an unsung master of the medium who addresses themes of nature, these flaws are unimportant. When I teach film classes I use the opening credits to illustrate the power of the long shot in nature, the campfire scene wherein Ootek invokes the spirit of the wolf as an example of use of natural light and shadow. It does not take the easy or expected way; it is both ambiguous and didactic to some extent.

Sadly, the film remains underappreciated by Disney. There are no extras on the DVD at all, and this is criminal, considering that a documentary on the film's production was made.

If you have not seen this film, you are missing an important American movie and a really satifying experience. This is one that you will want to talk about when it is over.

I adored this film, it tells the story of a lone researchers near fatal trip to study Artic Wolves with the intention of discovering if they are responsible for a decline in the Carabu population.
Of course events do not unfold as smoothly as his mission plans and the journey for the researcher becomes all consuming, far from sticking to his remit he becomes almost obsessed with the wolves and their survival (he was meant to kill one and study it's stomach contents to assess for Carabu remains).
There are themes of captilism versus the natural world here and I don't think I have ever seen a film that puts the argument across in such a seductive and convincing way. One becomes utterly captivated and seducued by Tyler's (the main character) journey in a mirror image of his own change of perspective. The Inuit people who star in the film are equally captivating, representing the old and new Inuit as they do, one acutely aware of the dying of the light of their people's and the other intoxicicated by the trappings of western life. In watching this film one loses a sense of what matters in the western world and this world becomes all their is, so clever the film makers can induce to experience the film as Tyler experiences his journey, there are times one forgets it is a contempapry film. No cars, few people and vast expanses of open space as well as Tyler looking postively from another time.
This is one Disney film that does not get enough airings, possibly because it is not the usual sugery fayre of that studio, their films usually have contrived happy endings and such visible morals they slap you hard in the face. This film is much more complex, subtle and requires more head work.
It is highly political, gritty and realistic and even features Tyler running round amongst a heard of Carabu wearing nothing but his socks, boots and glasses; SHOCK, HORROR!
It seems silly to shelve the film in order to avoid politics and non sexual nudity, just to keep the peace because in so doing a very importnat issue is also avoided.
A reality check I would offer this films critics would include how much the environmental movement has come on since the time it was made and secondly, as long as the nude scene is, there is only one or two scenes in which Tyler's penis is actually visible and one in which you can see his testicles from a rear view, but so what? is such non sexual nudity really so shameful?

When will Disney clean up the visual noise in this beautiful classic? This film deserves it, and soon (next release).

This was one of the first (and few) books I read for fun while I was growing up. Then when the movie came out, it was the icing on the cake. Today I'm ordering it for my dad for Father's Day in rememberance of "back then." I can't wait to watch it with him after all these years.