Trilobite

I just finished watching Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner and don’t know how to put my reaction to this film into words. It was the most powerful movie I’ve seen in a very long time.

The movie was set in the arctic in a time before any modern influence. All the dialogue is in Inuktitut. There are no trees or buildings in the entire movie and every scene is set either on the tundra or ice, or inside an igloo or animal skin tent. The movie seems to be very accurate with respect to Inuit customs and artifacts. I can’t say for certain how accurate, but from the two trips I took to visit Mom in Iqaluit, I think it must be pretty close. There are a lot of gruesome scenes where the actors are up carving seal carcasses or scraping the bloody parts off of animal skins. I think many of the animals must have been killed just for the movie which bothered me quite a bit at the beginning, but after a while I got so immersed in the story that I started to accept it as just part of the Inuit way of life.

The story revolves around a small community of about 20 people, a few of which are bad people. The back of the DVD case describes this movie as an action thriller, but I would probably call it a character drama. (I recommend you don’t read the DVD case since it gives away a major part of the story.) I was amazed by the depth of emotion conveyed in so many scenes just by a facial expression or a single sentence in a language I don’t understand. This movie really makes you feel for the characters, but not in the normal way that most movies do. It also has the best sex scene I can remember. I’ll probably edit out that last sentence in the morning.