‘Fast Runner’ Innovates Global Cinema

By Justin Lowe
Special to AsianWeek

The motion picture industry has become so globalized that it’s rare for audiences anywhere to be presented with fresh, unique visions of the world and its cultures. Perhaps it’s appropriate, then, that a return to a pre-cinematic era is required to introduce us to a truly innovative revelation in filmmaking.

Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) is the first Inuit-language feature film released internationally, a project of director Zacharias Kunuk’s Igloolik Isuma Productions, an independent Inuit company based in northern Canada with the goal of creating an “ Inuit style of community-based media production to preserve and enhance Inuit culture — and represent a distinctively Inuit point of view.”

Screenwriter Paul Apak Angilirq (who died in 1998 before the film was completed) adapted Atanarjuat from an ancient Inuit myth that conveys the virtues of cooperation, generosity and harmony common to subsistence communities. Atanarjuat is “a story we all heard as children, told and acted by Inuit,” says Kunuk. The film was shot over six months in the Baffin region’s Inuit island community of Igloolik, a location bearing several thousand years’ evidence of nomadic native settlement.

The filmmakers have termed their unique style of ethnic cinemas “ relived cultural drama.” They worked with Inuit storytellers and craftspeople to reconstruct the Atanarjuat legend from oral history and revive disappearing art forms by handcrafting many of the props and sets used in the film, including the costumes, dog sleds and igloos, effectively reappropriating traditional cultural knowledge.

The film’s documentary-style presentation and unselfconscious performances demystify the lives of the Inuit, rendering their heritage accessible to a broad audience, as attested by Atanarjuat’s receipt of several international awards, including the prestigious Camera d’Or for best first-time feature at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.

The confusing circumstances that open the film are gradually clarified for those unfamiliar with Inuit legend over the picture’s near-three hour running time. During some distant, mythic past, the brothers Atanarjuat (“fast runner”) and Amaqjuaq (“strong one” ) grow to maturity in a small band of Inuit suffering under a mysterious curse. In a prologue, viewers learn that a strange, malevolent shaman precipitated a murder that brought misfortune to their family and tragically divided the community. “We never knew who he was or how it happened,” the brothers’ aunt recounts. “Evil came to us like death.”

Twenty years later Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq) and Amaqjuaq (Pakkak Innukshuk) comprise a successful hunting team, providing sustenance not only for their own families, but for the entire community. Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq), the jealous son of the tribal chief who rose to leadership as a result of the earlier murder, relies more on subterfuge than skill for his hunting technique and is constantly taunting the brothers.

After Oki discovers that Atanarjuat and Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu), a young beauty he has been promised in marriage, are in love, he challenges his rival to a ritual boxing match, which consists of exchanging point-blank blows to the opponent’s head. Atanarjuat wins the fight and the right to marry Atuat, upsetting the established social order. Possessed by the spirit of the evil shaman, Oki’s rage resurrects the tribal curse.

As he plans his revenge, Oki cleverly maneuvers his comely sister Puja (Lucy Tulugarjuk) into Atanarjuat’s path while the hunter is away from home. Their tender, feral lovemaking, silhouetted by lamplight in a tent on the arctic tundra, is among the film’s most striking scenes. Atanarjuat takes Puja as a second wife, and she is soon sowing discord in the family.

In an ultimate betrayal, Puja leads Oki and his accomplices to the brothers’ summer camp, where the men murder Amaqjuaq. Atanarjuat escapes barefoot and naked across the sea ice, guided by the voices of his ancestors while closely pursued by Oki in a stunning chase sequence. From this harrowing midpoint, Atanarjuat unfolds as a compelling parable of revenge and redemption.

While Atanarjuat’s archetypal characters remain somewhat remote from contemporary experience, the all-Inuit cast — a mix of professionals and newcomers — delivers winningly understated performances that achieve an engrossing level of realism. The Asian ancestry of the Inuit people, traced across the prehistoric Bering Strait migratory route from Siberia, is obvious in the features of the actors. Their daily subsistence tasks and complicated rituals enliven the film’s ethnographic aesthetic, complimented by a filmmaking style that raises the story’s cultural context to a comparable level with the characters.

Director Kunuk’s choice of widescreen format and long takes is well suited to the looming solemnity of endless arctic vistas of mountains, snow and ice. Frequent handheld digital video camerawork allows cinematographer Norman Cohn to create a sense of immediacy with the actors and distinguish important details in the often undifferentiated landscapes.

Doubtlessly, the film’s leisurely pacing will pose a challenge for some viewers, but ultimately the universal tale of tragedy and heroism reveals itself as an outstanding achievement that is likely to be recognized as a landmark of international cinema.

Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), in Inuktitut with English subtitles, is unrated and currently playing in Bay Area theaters and selected locations nationwide.

Contact Justin Lowe at nextwavve@yahoo.com.