Quote:
"While the commentary is read with a travelog style of delivery, the score is authentic Indian music, and the pictorial content is more than mere coverage. [Totems] attempts to probe, if only slightly, beneath the surface to tell something of these Indians today, to make an ironic comment on the decay of their art, both historically and literally. Totems is an important film, a prototype for such later efforts as The Longhouse People (1950), Land of the Long Day (1952), and The Circle of the Sun (1960)."
-- C. Rodney James

Source:
James, C. Rodney. Film as a National Art: NFB of Canada and the Film Board Idea. New York: Arno Press, 1977. 'Originally presented as the author's thesis, Ohio State University, 1968, under title: The National Film Board of Canada, Its Task of Communication'. (p. 94)