Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner tells a thousand-year old Inuit legend about the curse of an evil shaman and the conflict between two families that continues across generations. This is not a highly entertaining drama filled with romance, jealousy, violence, and revenge. Filmed on location in Igloolik near the Arctic Circle, it is the first-ever film in the Inuktituk language and a cinema I hardly thought imaginable, one without artifice filmed in a pristine landscape of unique beauty. The images kept reverberating in my mind long afterwards: a naked man running for his life over miles of ice with bleeding feet, the dogsled rides through the snow, and the wondrous bluish light that saturates the landscape.
In the story, an evil spirit enters a small Inuit camp and helps Sauri, a member of the tribe, murder his father and assume the clan leadership. Years later, conflict arises between Sauri's son Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq) and the sons of Tulimaq, Amaqjuaag (Pakak Innukshuk), and Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq). In the most memorable sequence of the film, after Oki kills his brother and sets out after him, Atanarjuat runs stark naked through the ice and snow looking for sanctuary. The Fast Runner is a classic tale of good versus evil but one in which the hero does not conform to our pictures. Atanarjuat runs away from his enemy in fear of his life, and when he comes back it is in a spirit of reconciliation through forgiveness and love. The Fast Runner is not just good entertainment, it is also an experience of the soul.
A remarkable film that has garnered awards wherever it has been shown, and the first film ever made in the native language of the Inuit peoples of Arctic Canada. The place is the eastern arctic wilderness at the dawn of the first millenium. Evil in the form of a mysterious, unknown shaman enters a small community of nomadic Inuit and upsets its balance and spirit of cooperation. The stranger leaves behind a lingering curse of bitterness and discord. How can harmony be restored? An amazing film, unlike anything you will have seen.
Immediately at the start of the exhibitions in the Museum of the American Indian there is a showcase which contains an Inuit coat, woven, if memory serves me right, as... more >
Immediately at the start of the exhibitions in the Museum of the American Indian there is a showcase which contains an Inuit coat, woven, if memory serves me right, as a bridal gift. It is a work of exquisite beauty, hinting at the sophistication and complexity of this little known culture. I remember it years after my initial visit, and on the rare occasions I have visited New York in my life, make it a place of pilgrimage.
Earlier this year I read Seal Woman, by Beverly Farmer, an interesting novel which explores the contrast between this culture and mainstream white culture through the relationship of a white man and ‘Eskimo’ woman. I also, almost coincidentally, hired Nanook of the North; partly as a result of wanting to explore a title I remember from my childhood, partly to sustain my anthropological interest in the way that other cultures view the world. I was astounded by the simplicity and complexity of the narrative, and by the way this silent film, shot in acute physical conditions, captures the life of the ‘Eskimo’ Nanook.
Nothing prepared me for my viewing of Atanarjuat the Fast Runner. It is a film of remarkable power and strength on many levels. As a tale it is simple, yet compelling (compare it, for example, with the simplicity and power of a story like Close Range which builds in its intensity as it develops). As a portrait of an ancient way of life, carved out in arduous conditions, it is utterly riveting. As a portrait of a culture, it is dense and rich. The scenery is bewitching, which is remarkable in itself.
But also it is clearly a testament to the skill and dedication of the group of people at Isuma independent film making who want to celebrate their Inuit inheritance, and have the skill and dedication to make a film which is worth watching, in anyone’s terms, for its own sake.
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The first Inuit film to receive a theatrical release is an enthralling spectacle, the kind of film where you suddenly release that you’ve been watching the screen open... more >
The first Inuit film to receive a theatrical release is an enthralling spectacle, the kind of film where you suddenly release that you’ve been watching the screen open-mouthed and haven’t moved for half an hour. A recreation of an Inuit legend of a community divided by an evil shaman, the story is essentially based around the ancient theme of how to stop blood-letting between families once it has begun.
It is impossible not to watch the film with an ethnograpic eye that takes in the clothing, customs and greetings, but these are integral to the film rather than a by-product. The public tauntings and challenges to authority, the head-thumping competition, the shamanic scenes, and the measured and deliberate way with words all advance the tale and its telling. The power of speech is important too. Once vocalised, a thought has public currency. When Oki threatens to kill Atanarjuat, the latter’s brother asks, ‘did he throw the words out loud?’
The Arctic environment also plays a large part in the story, with its vastness requiring an honesty of its inhabitants. Little can be hidden from others in such a place and the matter of fact way in which large issues are broached is one of the most surprising elements of the film. It is also the kind of place where you know people are dead only when the land affirms the fact. After the extraordinary scene in which Atanarjuat has been chased naked across the ice-floes, and during his symbolic rebirth, we see him walking across a patch of purple flowers. Far away, his wife picks the same flowers and knows he is not dead. It is one of the only scenes to feature a colour other than the predominantly lilac-shadowed icy-blue whiteness that gives way to the golden light of evening sun and then firelight inside igloos - colours that lend a visual rhythm to the film.
This is a tale told with economy, grace and grandeur. Joseph Campbell would certainly have approved.
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Atanarjuat - The Fast Runner 
