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...Greenland.
Director Zacharias and his collaborators dreamt up the project for Igloolik Isuma Productions, an independent company they run in Nunavut, the vast Inuit region carved out of the Northwest Territories two years ago. Isuma was founded by Kunuk, the late Paul Apak Angilirq, Paul Qulitalik and the only non-Inuit on the team, ex-New Yorker Norman Cohn. Paul Apak, who wrote the movie, was only 44 years old when he died during production, some say a victim of inadequate northern medical care. Qulitalik, an authority on traditional Inuit life, plays a major character in the film. Cohn, the film's hands-on director of photography as well as a producer and co-editor, has lived in his apartners' hometown of Igloolik, a small community in the northern Baffin Island region, since 1985. Until their movie came out of nowhere and took the Camera d'Or for Best Debut Feature at Cannes 2001, few in the Canadian film industry had heard of these guys from the ice floes and tundra of the Far North. For Torontonians or Montrealers, Igloolik is so distant, it might as well be on the moon. To get Atanarjuat to the point where a jury, led by actress Maria De Medeiros, gave Kunuk the nod over the directors of Shrek, the Isuma team struggled past indifference, condescension, funding catastrophes and tough shooting conditions. The untimely deaths of Paul Apak and a year later, his wife Amelia, didn't make things easier. And despite a tiny budget, they had committed themselves to an ambitious epic story involving dramatic, comedic and romantic notes that had to be hit just right.
Destined to go down in Canadian film history as the surprise movie of 2001, and one of the best ever made in this country, Atanarjuat is bold and emotionally generous. Full of surprises, it never limits itself by locking into one mode and never plays like one of those deadening films about Aboriginal people that stereotypes them as either nature gurus, martyrs or booze-addled, gas-sniffing losers. The Inuit don't need that kind of depersonalization, either from well-intentioned whites or officially sanctioned Aboriginal media makers.
Set in the distant past, but affirming a spirit that the filmmakers believe still thrives, Atanarjuat offers a romantic, rapturous view of a culture that has flourished for thousands of years. With its dynamic story material and its sweeping visual beauty, Kunuk's picture is mesmerizing in its portrayal of Arctic nomads caught in a struggle between the good and the bad. The film's mythic, yet intimate plot involves a rivalry for a beautiful woman and a very human susceptibility to evil. At the same time, ribald humour feeds into Atanarjuat's down-to-earth feel-as when one character tells another to think of the boulder he is trying to lift as a woman's butt.
There are moments when the nearly three-hour film...
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More articles from Take One
Letters to the editor about Take One no. 49.(Back Page)(Letter to the ..., June 01, 2005
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Crash test.(Reprint), June 01, 2005
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