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.
I just finished watching The Barbarian Invasions and think it probably deserves a spot somewhere in my top ten list. What I really liked about the film was Nathalie’s character, and not just because she was a heroin addict. (That was a joke, Mom.) I liked a lot of the same things about her that I liked about Renton from Trainspotting. They both made a mess of their lives but somehow figured out a way to solve their problems. In Renton’s case it meant doing something pretty despicable, but in doing so he managed to escape his current situation and start a new life. Nathalie also did something funny at the end of Barbarian Invasions, but what she did changed my opinion about one of the other characters in the movie.
The Barbarian Invasions dvds have two versions of the film: the full 112 minute version and the edited 98 minute version. The only thing I can imagine being edited out is the drug use and I can’t imagine how the movie could be even half as good without the contrast between the main characters and the “barbarians.” I’m curious to watch this 98 minute version, but I probably would just find it an annoying 98 minutes of snobs eating truffles and talking about art.
I’m going to have to rent some more Denys Arcand movies.
Peter bought me a dvd player for my birthday and since Classic Video is just around the corner I’ve been renting a lot of films lately. I’m sure there are some good ones I’ve forgotten, but off the top of my head here are my ten favourite movies.
- Princess Mononoke
- Amélie
- Trainspotting
- Star Wars
- The Incredibles
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Spirited Away
- Fargo
- Castle in the Sky
- 42 Up
I went to see the new X-Men movie the other day and enjoyed it quite a bit. I didn’t know about it at the time, but apparently there is a 30-second scene after the end credits which hints pretty strongly that there will be a fourth movie. Thanks to the magic of the internet I managed to track down and download the extra scene [1.2MB AVI]. Background information is here. Don’t click on either of those links unless you’ve already seen the movie.
I finished playing Syberia II today and wish there was another game in that series. The graphics were much better than in the first game but the story had a few gaping holes in it. I still liked it very much though. One thing this game has made me start doing is double-clicking on everything. In the game, if you click somewhere on the screen Kate will stroll over to that spot and if you double click she’ll jog. Sometimes I even found myself triple-clicking when I was impatient. Yesterday at work I was showing a co-worker a bug that I had found in one of our products and I quadruple-clicked on a Windows button! Wow. I’m going to have to unlearn that habit fast! [I’m also going to have to change the font for this blog. I’m not sure what this WordPress default font is (Lucida Grande? Verdana?), but it puts the first two letters of the word “click” a bit too close together!]
