Movie about the Inuit people

I just watched a very interesting movie called " The Fast Runner" about a clan of Inuit people in the Arctic living as they may have before the coming of outsiders. If you get a chance and can find it, as it is very well made.

It goes through everything from birth,marriage, clan rivalries,judgement of action, betrayal,murder,hunting,survival, sharing,customs,sexuality and love.

It is a very long movie at 161 minutes, but worth every minute. And it was produced mainly by the Inuit people themselves. Its in the native tongue with english subtitles.

http://www.atanarjuat.com/

Thanks for the reccomendation Gary, I'll look for it tonight at our video store.

Thanks for the recommendation. I added it to my movie queue.

I believe "Atanarjuat: the fast runner" was produced by a westernised Canadian with an inuit bloodline, rather than someone raised as an inuit. I therefore refute claims that the film was made by inuits.

The cast enacted a myth passed down through inuit verbal history. The producer apparently aimed to create a film that would reflect what it means to be inuit, to an inuit audience.

I liked it because it combines contemporary techniques with an old story. For example, when he is running, the camera is on railings infront of Atanarjuat's feet. That is something that would have been outside the perceptual imagination of the original story tellers.

It is a very signifiant example of film fiction. However, it is not real life, and it is not more significant than a version of Homer's Odyssey made by a contemporary European film crew that speak Greek on camera.

There is a very old film called Nanook of the North, by Flaherty. It is perhaps more genuine than Atanarjuat because the lead subject is a real uniut who was playing himself. However, Flaherty staged much of his film using scripts and props so its hardly realistic.

For example, Flaherty commissioned an igloo with one missing side so that he could film inside an inuit house using his massive camera and consequently, you see Nanook's family shivering in their comfortable sleep.

In the film credits of the Fast Runner the majority of the people who helped make the movie from videographers to best boy and so on are inuit people of either Canada or where-ever,

Stormbind,

If I understand your post, you are condemning the film because it was made by people living at the present time, who have had contact with non-Inuits, regardless of their inheritance and family background. If my understanding of your point of view is correct, you would also deny the legitimacy of any book or film made by anyone other than the subject him/her/itself, including all films about animal and plant subjects. That is, a film about polar bears cannot be legitimate unless made by a polar bear, and a film about the mountain gorillas cannot be legitimate unless made by a mountain gorilla (and even then that cannot be genuine because the gorilla making the film would have had contact with modern technology and was thus corrupted).

It is certainly true that any book, any collection of photographs, sketches, or drawings, and any film or video is by its very nature shaped by the background and point of view of the writer, photographer, or cinematographer. Does this mean, in your point of view, that no work of art can have legitimacy or genuiness?

Also, if I read you correctly, this means that when one moves into a different environment from one's ancestors, one automatically ceases to be a member of one's ancestral group, and perhaps even of one's family.

Bill S said:

That is, a film about polar bears cannot be legitimate unless made by a polar bear, and a film about the mountain gorillas cannot be legitimate unless made by a mountain gorilla

hahaha that post was hillarious. it probably was not meant to be, but it brought me giggles!

Animals making true to life films about about their own kind would be cool, but I think that is a long way off, if ever. But the idea is good, would'nt you say, Kmarr?

Gary -

Closer than you think. There is something called a "CritterCam" than can be attached (and has been) to critters of a wide range of sizes, some very small. The critter then does his wandering and at some point the attachment is either released remotely or by a timer and recovered by a tracking radio signal. There have been some really interesting things shown on National Geographic Channel shot with the CritterCam. One of the most interesting was when they attached it to a narwhal (the whale with the long unicorn-like tusk - endangered species whose tusk was claimed in the Middle Ages to be a "real" unicorn horn.

I watched a show a few days ago where two divers managed to get a camera on a Humbolt Squid, they were wearing chain mail to protect themselves from the squid. I didn't get to watch the whole show, but would like to catch it again.

lots of good movies out there. Anyone watched "himalaya" (not sure of the title anymore). It's a movie about a tribe of Tibetan people shot with mostly locals. Very interesting. Of course nothing beats going there and experiencing for yourself, but i'm stuck here and this is as good it gets right now!