Starring Natar Ungalaaq, Sylvia Ivalu, Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq, Lucy Tulugarjuq Pauloosie Qulitalik, Madeline Ivalu, Eugene Ipkarnak, Pakkak Innukshuk.

 

Storytelling being an important cultural medium in nomadic societies for morality and tradition, this Inuit legend is a true Hero’s Journey. In the words of the great teacher of mythology Joseph Campbell, myth is the language of the spirit, and as such it is a tale which deepens our understanding of the interaction between human and spirit, and how human beings, albeit frail and tempted by desire or doubt, might act on the path to enlightenment. 

This is a world of the vast frozen seas and wastelands of Canada’s Arctic north where the horizon is flat as far as you can see, and the sky is alive with spiritual presence. Here the midnight sun’s constant glare is just as it was a thousand years ago, requiring the use of carved slitted sunshades made from caribou antler that look startlingly modern in style. The crafts and lifestyle of the Inuit people of Igloolik at the last millennium are recreated for this film of breathtaking visual artistry in the legend of Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner. We are shown a culture accustomed to subsistence living, where people must band together for survival. Every scrap of organic or even inorganic material (in the case of ice blocks for building igloos) is utilised for survival by animal and human alike.

Beneath human passions and desires are the metaphysical elements of telepathic communication, intuition and ancestral spiritual assistance. The environment is so quiet they can listen more clearly to their inner heart’s voice or to the voices of spirits and be governed by what they hear for good or ill. The notion of reincarnation is accepted, as is the difference between a man and the spirit behind him. The sound track contains much wonderful Bulgarian throat singing, deepening the strong spiritual quality while bringing deep earthy and organic resonances and harmonics.

This moral tale hinges on disharmony and imbalance brought about by an overweening desire for power in a small Inuit community in ancient Igloolik. Among the many indelible scenes is one of single combat between Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq) and the evil-tempered bully Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq) to determine who will wed the lovely Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu). Set in the large igloo for tribal meetings with tribal members seated all around, the two men stand stripped to the waist. In turn each bares his left temple and jaw and stands braced and still for a single blow from the other’s fist. The first to fall loses.  

It is only a matter of time before hatred, resentment and desire for revenge resurface, resulting in a breathtaking and continuously wrenching scene where Atanarjuat must flee barefoot and naked across the ice pursued by Oki and two cronies. Only by the intervention of spiritual help does Atanarjuat escape his pursuers through the Arctic wilderness.

Joseph Campbell once told of Igjugarjuk, shaman of the Caribou Eskimo tribe of northern Canada, who said that the only true wisdom lives ‘far from mankind out in the great loneliness, and can be reached only through suffering’. A true spiritual hero must bring something, a great understanding and a peace within himself, back from the wilderness to share with his people. Only the barest hints of Atanarjuat’s inner journey are shown possibly because, at 170 minutes running time, the film is already long, though enthralling.

Returning, Atanarjuat puts his plan into action and builds a trap in which justice will be meted to Oki and his two friends. In this powerful scene how exactly he will   demonstrate the superior moral power he has gained during his time in exile is a razor’s edge of possibilities.

I was reminded of similar tales as told by Ruth Beebe Hill in Hanta Yo about the nomadic Lakota Sioux of centuries past, and also of James Michener’s Hawaii. In both there are tales of a man with a loving, devoted and wise wife who takes a second, younger, spoilt and wilful girl to wife and has to deal with the ensuing disharmony between them all. Similar, too, are the harsh, uncertain environments from which subsistence must be wrought; the tribal taboos and mores and the tribes’ reliance on the shaman’s spiritual knowingness; the tensions endured when individuals have to swallow their differences and deal with their conflicts decisively to survive.

The film is an extraordinary feat both for director Zacharias Kunuk and these natural actors - all Inuit, as are the director and crew except for Director of Photography Norman Cohn, who has lived among them long enough to be accepted as one of them. The props are authentic recreations of ancient crafts in weaponry, qayak and building materials, the costumes are sealskin, polar bear hide, wolf skin and goose feathers in recreations of ancient Inuit garments. At the end of the film, shots of crew on sleds with modern sunglasses and sound and film equipment put the tale into perspective. The device brings the storyteller into the story as presented to us. Having visited this other world and been shown its deep secrets, now we are just as courteously shown out, considerably enriched.

© Avril Carruthers                                              September 10^th 2002

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