Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) – B. Morrison

I don’t know how director Bill Morrison decided to structure this unique documentary but I imagine that it went something like this. First, he heard about the 1978 Dawson Film Find which involved 533 reels of nitrate film from the silent era being uncovered beneath an old recreation centre in the Yukon Territory town. (As I’m sure you are aware, the highly flammable film stock has mostly burned up in fires around the world, decimating our silent film history).  Then, he interviewed some of the protagonists (those who rescued the films) and reviewed the silent films themselves, pondering how he might use clips from the old films in his own.  It wasn’t long before he realised that he could tell the history of Dawson City itself which was founded around about the same time as cinema itself began.  He used clips from the Film Find, yes, but also other period footage and still photos and other related images, such as clips from Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925).  You see, Dawson City was born, lived, and basically died as a result of the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1898 when 40,000 prospectors settled in the area (displacing the local First Nations people, as Morrison sadly points out). Fortunes were made via gold by a few but many more seemed to have profited by running saloons and brothels and gambling parlours. Dawson City was the end of the film distribution line in Canada and films that were 2 or 3 years old played there and then the studio didn’t want them back.  By the 1940s, there were so many films piled up in the old library basement that a decision was made to junk them – most were destroyed but some were buried in the old recreation building when a swimming pool was filled in.  Fast forward to 1978.  The resultant film is nearly wordless, with text on the images telling us the story (or giving attributions for the clips), and with Sigur Ros accomplice Alex Somers’ glacial soundtrack, the effect is hypnotic.  I really got a sense of the time and place and thought about how different the world was then (for better and for worse).  I also thought about the Klondike Derby and my memories of trekking through the snow with a dogsled (pulled by other boy scouts) and performing various tasks (building a fire, first aid, orienteering) in snowy New Hampshire.  Hello Troop 75!  Of course, an all-pervading sense of loss accompanies what we see here – but, if you get a chance to view this masterpiece of cinematic art, I highly recommend it.