The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat)

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and Unprecedented.
Review: I saw this movie last night and made it all the way to bedtime without words. After having a chance to sleep on it, it is now starting to sink in how truly amazing this movie is. You will be first blown away by the fact that this movie even exists. It is truly unprecedented in every sense of the word. I don't remember seeing anything like it. the only movie remotely close is "Nanook of the North", which is a huge stretch. Unlike "Nanook", this movie is shot from the Inuit perspective, by the Inuit themselves (90% of the participants in this production were full-blooded Inuit. This is a first), and the characters are not looked upon as anthropological specimens. They are real people living in a fragile existence, where any wrong move could mean sure death.

The actors are astonishing, and it must have been so terribly cold up there. You know this must have been a huge labor of love for the production team. (According to the end credits, two crewmen died making this movie) The scenery is astonishing. It is a beautiful story based on an Inuit legend that exists on many different levels and subplots, etc. All told on the frozen tundra without ANY indication given about the timeframe, or even the century, in which it was set.

I am just astonished at the painstaking attention to historical detail. I have read many books on Inuit culture, and most everything I have read was visualized in this movie, the social structure, the power of the patriarch, the constant looming of starvation, the role of the hunter/husband, the insubordination of women (pre-arranged marriages), the obsession with taboo and curses, the fine art of building igloos and staying warm in -60 temps, and yet, through all the hardships, there was so much happiness. They even showed how the dogs were handled and treated, even down to the way the Inuit would slicken their sledge rails by spitting small amounts of water on them until a layer of slick frozen ice formed, which makes the sledges slide easier over the pack ice.

One aspect I noticed was how the movie was TOTALLY devoid of the influence of the white man. Their knives were made from caribou horns; they had no metal tools or metal cookware, which indicates that the movie was purposely based on a time before the Inuit's first contact with the white man.

It has a slow start, it's only fault. You will be a bit confused at first, trying to understand the characters and what exactly is happening, but then it starts to really suck you in, you begin to love the protagonists, who are physically beautiful people, and then you will grow to hate the antagonists, who are mean and undesirable. Afterwards, you will realize again that almost all of these people, cast and crew, were full-blooded Inuit. You will then want to immediately see it again and demand a documentary on the making of this film. You will want to know who these people are, what they do in their normal lives, because most of these actors are making their big screen debut. The end of the movie gives you a quick behind-the-scenes peek, but it serves as only a small appetizer to a bigger feast. Most importantly, your respect for their pride and perseverance of their culture will increase ten-fold. This movie is worth owning and watching repeatedly and recommending it to a good friend or two. I don't know the people who made this film, but I am proud of them for pulling this off, and doing it so astonishingly well. There is nothing else like it.

Rating:
Summary: What the??!!
Review: Oh my goodness, what were the makers of this..errr.."film" thinking?

I lived in Alaska at the time this was released and, of course, it got RAVE reviews in the Anchorage Daily News.
Makes sense, considering that Alaska obviously has a huge native polulation.

Anyhow, I didn't go see this movie back then because it didn't really grab my attention...I should have kept it at that.
I rented this film earlier this week because I figured it might be something interesting to watch over the X-mas holiday.

I popped it in and the first thing that got me was the fact that neither the production nor the acting was done by professionals.
Turns out this film was shot with a HD camera and the "actors" are amateurs in the truest sense of the word!
Another reviewer has remarked that the film looks and sounds like a National Geographic documentary and that pretty much nails it!

I really tried to be objective and open-minded while watching this crap but who in their right mind can enjoy frame after frame of buck toothed Eskimo men pissing, farting, belching, murdering and raping their way through an excrutiatingly mundane and utterly predictable "plot"?
And the women!!! Goodness gracious...couldn't they find at least ONE decent looking "actress" for this?
There have been some great remarks about the "nature shots". What nature? Ice and snow do qualify I suppose, but let's face it, the frozen Arctic is no nature wonderland. So no kudos on that end either.

I gave this thing 2 stars because it was kinda neat, for the first 20 minutes at least, to see how life in an Inuit village was conducted in the old days...and perhaps today even.
Beyond that, there isn't anything that warrants the lavish praises bestowed upon this mess.
It's too long, too boring, too predictable, the acting too amateurish, the production too lacking in even the most rudamentary of styles and the characters too unattractive....as in every last one of them, to pass for a legitimate film.

I've seen porn better acted and produced as this (with much more attractive characters I might add). Basically, this is more like a really, really lame 3 hour long reality show, set 1000 years back on the Canadian arctic coast.

Sorry folks, this movie sucks. No two ways about it.


Rating:
Summary: Has its merits but...
Review: It IS amateur. It is too long. Watching a naked man run across ice and rocks though is enough to warrant a viewing. That ranks as one of the most stunning visuals in cinematic history. It is truly a spellbinding sequence. I didn't care much for the story. It's the scenery and the look of the production that deserve the attention. I marvel that it even got made, but if this is the best "arctic" cinema has to offer, then baby, it has a LONG way to go before you see even a trickle of these reaching the masses. Special mention must be made of the picture quality. It is stunning, as it was shot with HD cams. It has some of the clearest blue sky I've ever seen on display, crystalline and sharp.

Rating:
Summary: Glorious
Review: This is a terrific movie.

Never before in my whole life have I seen a movie about people who were supposed to have lived two millenia ago and felt that we were all part of the same society. That they could have walked right into my house, or I into their, um, igloo. It was a cinematic tour de force that should be a classic for this reason alone. I liked it all: the clothes, the sunglasses, the choice of Inuit as a language with beautifully translated subtitles.

Perhaps the most difficult part of the movie is to convey the superstitiousness of the Inuit in a way the audience can relate to. Again, the film is triumphant.

And the scenes are simply unforgettable: can a Man really kick a sled dog? Or take a second Wife? And the klutzy hero: can he really escape from three men who want to kill him and then simply take them all on at once and outfight them?

If you think you might like it, get it.

Rating:
Summary: A True Arctic Legend
Review: The Fast Runner is not your typical film. You have to possess an open mind and thrive yourself with patience to truly enjoy this work of art. Half of those who experience The Fast Runner would give it a thumbs up, the other half, a thumbs down. There's really no intermediate. You'll simply either love it, or hate it.

The Fast Runner is an epic that illustrates a legend of the Arctic, Atanarjuat. Atanarjuat is an Inuit prodigy who achieves the respect of his people, but also breeds fear and hate between other tribe members. The Fast Runner is a story of love, hate, trust, vengence and victory. There is a huge barrier that separates modern civilization from the Arctic lifestyle and culture, but there's also the same fundamental elemets of life that exist in our everyday lives. Situations of love, jealousy, pain, joy and triumphs.

This film isn't about big time actors or big time producers, it's more about a way of life seen through the eyes of an everyday Arctic inhabitant in the Inuit circle of life. The Fast Runner was a great movie, and will forever be one of the most underrated films of all time. Not in the light of a classic, but one could make an argument, nonetheless.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible insight into life in the Arctic
Review: I am currently researching life in the Arctic for a project I am working on. While I have been able to find a number of books on the subject, finding movies or video on life "up there", especially covering traditional ways of living has been a much tougher endeavor indeed. When I first heard about Fast Runner I knew I had to watch it. I was not disappointed.

The story is straight forward, but what I liked the most are the insights and cinematography on how people have adapted to life in the Arctic. Also the portrayal of real life situations. I have read that murder is more common than though, especially over women.

The "non big screen film" look of the movie (Use of DV), while at first I thought would be a negative, turned out to be a positive. It often gave me the feeling as if I was right there witnessing their lives being played out first hand.

Yes, the movie is a bit long. (Perhaps this is more of a cultural condition of our relatively faster paced lives and expectations - alot of movies in the past and in some places of the world still have intermissions at theatres, nothing wrong with that) Yes, it is confusing in some parts - better transitions or simple text on screen when time periods changed would have been helpful.

But, all in all an excellent effort. Highly recommended. I really want to give it 4.5 stars if I could, but will be happy with 4, in hopes that another movie with a story from the Arctic Inuit will be made that I can give a 5!! Perhaps a different region of the Arctic too.

Rating:
Summary: Very long
Review: And somewhat confusing. I know this sounds terrible, but for the first hour or so, I didn't really know what was going on, because I kept getting the characters all mixed up. This is actually kind of a Shakespearean-type story. It's interesting by virtue of being exposed to a completely different culture and way of life, but it got boring when it entered into it's THIRD HOUR.
My advice: read a synopsis of the plot before you start it, and take an intermission halfway through!

Rating:
Summary: A different kind of movie but WOW!
Review: As we would have said back ih high school, "This movie works on so many levels."
A powerful mythic story. Like a Greek tragedy, the world of this Inuit clan is disrupted and disharmony is introduced. Is it an evil spirit? Or selfish human choices made contrary to the social norms? The relucant hero is exiled but gains strength and returns to purge the evildoers and restore the natural order. [I suspect G. Bush might "get" the this movie.]
A fascinating ethnographic study of a very different way of life. Dog sleds and survival depending on the dogs, seal hunting through the ice, blubber eating, igloo building, etc.
Many wonderful, vivid scenes. Building the igloo. Then the fight inside on the icy floor. The hero hiding from his pursuers under a pile of sea weed, pee-ed on by the unknowing bad guy. And most memorably, the hero escaping murder, running naked across what looks like an endless, flat sheet of ice. I bet we'll never see Brad Pitt or Harrison Ford do something like that.
And the "poetic", meditative cinematography. True, it's grainy digital video, but what an impression! The landscape looks Godforsaken, desolate and frightening but beautiful in its own way.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Scenes
Review: The scenery is stark and beautiful. That is the star of the film. Why did people decide to live in such a land, and how can they exist with springtime lasting only a month or two a year. These are aboriginal people who, pone believes, can be alive today, or thousands of years ago. Nothing sems to change in their lives. They have a code of conduct and levels of respect that allow them to adapt to their surroundings. An unexpectedly interesting movie.