Glad you looked into Robert Gardner. In the video you link, he interviews Robert Flaherty's widow in the 1960s. It's also available in the Criterion DVD of Nanook of the North.
In this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzKoeFX5Nbg, he explains his decision not to provide any text or voice-over in Forest of Bliss choosing instead to free the viewer to make meaning by providing subjective interpretations based on what they see and hear, no matter how exotic and cryptic it is.
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