Atanarjuat (Kunuk, 2001)

Atanarjuat (Zacharias Kunuk, 2001) - aka The Fast Runner -was the first feature film ever written in Inuktitut. It is acted and produced by an almost exclusively Inuit crew. It was shot in Igloolik in the territory we call Nunavut, Canada. It is the telling of a thousand plus year old story passed down through the generations.

This film really takes a lot of pondering, and digesting after the fact. It is three hours in duration, and is packed with an intense story, set in a world very foreign, to me at least. It is set 1000 years ago, in a place far from here, but it does not feel like it.

Atanarjuat was shot digitally, and with a rather hand-held feel. This, combined with the foreign location, and certainly other aspects that I cannon pinpoint, give it a kind of documentary feel. I most certainly is not a documentary though, being a fictional story deriving from a 1000 year old oral tradition.

It is indirectly educational, though. It gives viewers a chance to hear a language they would not otherwise here, for three hours. It also gives them a chance to see, and get intimate with a part of the world that is foreign, and harsh. It also lets us see and hear traditions, and stories from the point of view of the culture from which they come.