A Trip through British North Borneo serves both as an example of the early film travelogue -- featuring familiar types of shots, such as the 'phantom rides' shot from a train -- and also of the sponsored, industrial documentary.
In representational terms, the film is a rare and valuable record of the development, industries, and customs of the local communities, showing local sites (such as the Padas River and the Darvel Bay tobacco estates) and in particular, the relationship between the local -- as workers, convicts and at leisure -- and the colonial administrators.
As a film sponsored by the British North Borneo Company, it promotes the company's administration and seeks to encourage further investment. This is achieved first through the film's emphasis on travel -- following the expedition by train, and across the river -- which affirms an ideology of colonial exploration, adventure and discovery and encourages the viewer to identify with those developing the country.
Secondly, the film shows the social work of the company -- reports noted its role in bringing peace and order and it is shown, for example, providing food to convicts -- and thirdly, it emphasises the commercial possibilities and ongoing development within the area. The varied industries of the region are shown, including rubber, tobacco and manganese, and this chimes with both the company's own emphasis on increasing the export trade, and with the broader imperial rhetoric of increased productivity within the colonies.
The British North Borneo Company evidently recognised the pedagogical and commercial value of film in promoting the company's development plans and in generating further investment. Indeed the company's engagement with film is an early example of a colonial administration using film, not only as a tool for imperial governance, but effectively as advertising, as a means of encouraging direct investment from the viewer.
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