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The Fast Runner - 6/7/02 - R - 172m - DVD
Natar
Ungalaaq - Atanarjuat
Sylvia Ivalu - Atuat
Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq - Oki
Director: Zacharias Kunuk
Written by: Paul Apak Angilirq & Norman Cohn
JEF
This was a strange film, and it’s going to be hard to review
because of the strangeness. But I’ll see if I can get my point across
here…
Storyline: Set in Canada, in the barren winter wasteland,
we’re introduced to a tribe of Inuit Eskimos. It is a small tribe,
maybe 50 or so people, is my guess. The movie focuses around two brothers
(I’m going to leave the names out for this review, you’ll
see why in a minute). The tribe has an evil presence in their midst, which
is causing them to have poor hunting, poor relationships, and just generally
bad luck. The movie explores the personal relationships of the brothers
and their wives, and how they interact with other tribe members who may
have certain “evil” motives of their own.
The reason I suggested that it was a strange film, is mainly because it
was a new experience for me to be introduced to this culture. The only
thing I remember about Eskimos was that when I was a kid in elementary
school, I vaguely remember seeing a movie called “Nanook of the
North” which was filmed in 1922! (How they chose this movie to show
to a bunch of elementary kids, I’ll never know).
I hope this doesn’t offend anyone sensitive to ‘political
correctness’, but one of my biggest problems of this movie was identifying
the characters. They all had black hair. They all had heavy leather, and
fur parkas on, that covered up practically everything but their face.
They even spoke in the same tone of voice. So it was little things like
one brother had a small leather headband, so I was able to identify him
easily. One characters name was Oki, who had a goofy look about him, and
one of the women had a distinctive way she wore her hair. Other than that,
I was having a difficult time figuring out who was who. Another small
problem I had was their names. Oki, Antanarjuat, Atuat, Pakak, It was
hard to understand their accents how they pronounced these names. Yes,
the movie was also subtitled. But if you look down to read the name, you
missed the character on screen, and if you were looking at the character,
you couldn’t understand the accents of their names. Ok, so this
was fairly minor of a point, and by the end of the movie, I was able to
distinguish between the main characters easier because I was able to pick
up on their mannerisms.
The next thing that made this film strange was the location. The tribe
was out in the middle of nowhere! With not a tree, or bush, or building
in site! Which made the various locations hard to keep track of. I.e.:
Whose igloo were they in, whose tent were they at, how far did they travel,
etc. I also had a hard time with telling what time it was taking place.
There were no scenes shot at night. I’m guessing that when they
were shown inside of the igloos that it was night, but with no windows
it’s just a guess. I know this sounds real nitpicky, but it was
hard to tell, if something occurred a day ago, or earlier that morning,
or if a week had passed. There were a few scenes that were flashbacks,
and I had a hard time picking up on that.
Now… all that being said, once I got over this sort of culture shock,
I started to enjoy this movie. There for a while, I thought I was watching
a documentary, but then, I started realizing that no, these were in fact
actors, acting out a story. The storyline was also quite involved. The
movie lasted almost 3 hours.
One other thing I should warn viewers about here… The movie was
called “The Fast Runner” perhaps it should have been called
“The Totally Naked Guy Who Runs Fast Cause He’s Naked and
Its Thirty Degrees Below Zero!” There were some rather explicit
scenes in this movie. Granted it was innocent for the most part, like
reading an issue of National Geographic, but the “R” rating
is mainly due to this reason.
Well, I’m starting to feel bad about this review. It really sounds
like I’m bashing it, when in fact, after all was said and done,
I am glad I had the chance to see this movie. The culture differences
were extreme and I think I learned things. The Cinematography was very
well done, considering the setting and environment they were in. The sound
was another plus. The crunching of the snow underfoot was really an element
that made me feel like I should go and put a coat on, in the beginning
of June.
If you like movies that are subtitled, and can handle some of the above
points I’ve mentioned, by all means rent this movie, and enjoy it
as a piece of art.
Jef