Summary:
The story of Atanarjuat: the Fast Runner is based on an ancient Inuit legend that deals with the dangers of setting personal desires above the needs of a whole community. The film’s narrative unfolds at the dawn of the first millennium, when Atanarjuat is still an infant. Inside a large igloo, families have gathered for a celebration. However, festivities are marred by evil spirits, and the camp leader and shaman, Kumaglak, is killed. His cruel son Sauri takes the reins of power, and as a result Atanarjuat’s family is excluded from central activities in the camp. Nonetheless, Atanarjuat and his brother Amajuat grow to be healthy young men and skilled hunters. When Atanarjuat and his rival Oki both court the beautiful Atuat, new tensions arise. Atuat chooses Atanarjuat and for several years they remain happily married – until the treacherous Puja sets murderous events in motion. She betrays the brothers to Oki and several hunters, who kill Amajuat but fail to capture Atanarjuat. In an iconic scene, Atanarjuat runs naked over the broken spring ice to escape. He stays with friends, but then returns to the camp to confront Oki and his allies. He does not kill them but instead banishes them from the community, thus breaking the cycle of violence and revenge.
Analysis:
Atanarjuat: the Fast Runner was produced and directed by Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn from Isuma Productions, an Inuit film company with offices in Montreal and Igloolik, Canada. The film received international acclaim and won a ‘Camera d’Or’ award for best feature at the 2001 Cannes film festival. As one of the first feature films, written, produced and directed by Inuit filmmakers, it represents a unique stage in Canadian and Aboriginal cinema. Its international success led to increased awareness of the importance of Indigenous filmmaking, especially in regards to presenting a necessary counterpoint to widespread stereotypical portrayals of Inuit and Native peoples in mainstream media. In Atanarjuat the filmmakers combined a community-based approach to storytelling with digital production technologies to create an authentic portrayal of life and customs in the Arctic.
The film’s adaptation reveals a key difference from the Inuit legend that centres on Atanarjuat’s escape and his miraculous survival. Instead of Atanarjuat killing Oki and his allies, he pardons them. This shifts the focus to the importance of the peaceful coexistence amongst members of an Inuit community, which ultimately ensures their survival in the harsh Arctic climate. According to filmmaker Cohn (as cited in Evans 2008: 94), Atanarjuat ‘is about how to communicate the right way to behave and live. You learn by being told how to behave through stories. There is restitution and moral authority by restoring the value of community as superior to the value of the individual. That’s an Inuit value.’
For Atanarjuat Kunuk and his partners used historical records and museum exhibits to explore traditional Inuit ways of life. Isuma’s approach is therefore fundamentally different from mainstream filmmaking practices, starting with community involvement in every aspect of the production process. From costume making, set construction and make-up, to actors, scriptwriters and technicians, over a hundred Igloolik residents took part in the film; thus, generating important employment opportunities for local residents. Paul Apak wrote the script in Inuktitut, which Norman Cohn translated into English. Atanarjuat received public funding from agencies such as Telefilm Canada, after a lengthy process of convincing the government that the filmmakers should be able to access the funding stream marked for Canadian productions, rather than a smaller envelope designated for Aboriginal films. Isuma’s persistence was rewarded: not only did the filmmakers augment the production budget for Atanarjuat they also increased awareness of in-built discriminatory perceptions of Aboriginal filmmaking practices and expectations of financial returns. The international success resulted in the recognition of Inuit filmmaking – including its unique aesthetic form of representation – in Canada and abroad. It imploded previously held stereotypes about Aboriginal media and consequently made it easier for Isuma to develop other feature films like The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006) and Before Tomorrow (2010).
The key to Isuma’s philosophy is to create films which accurately reflect Inuit history and daily life. For Zacharias Kunuk the ‘Inuit point of view’ in filmmaking is based on the authentic representation of Arctic settings, peoples and their environment. In Atanarjuat this is reflected in portraying traditional Inuit skills, from using the right tools for building an igloo, to hunting skills and attending oil lamps. The film also introduces audiences to traditional childcare, food preparations, music, dance and the art of facial adornments and sewing clothes. These depictions show audiences that an ancient culture continues to thrive. In turn, community involvement in filmmaking processes allows participants to learn about ancient customs and communicate their insights to local and international audiences.
Films like Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner are an important response to colonial depictions of Inuit communities in literature, photographs, films and documentaries. The most well known of these portrayals is exemplified by Robert Flaherty’s documentary Nanook of the North from 1922, in which he created a romanticised image of an Inuit family living in a pre-industrial setting amidst a hostile natural world. Flaherty constructed an image of the ‘happy Inuit’, a reality that was far removed from the social and political conditions of the time. On the contrary, Alakariallak, who played Nanook, and his family were from the same Inukjuamiut community that would be relocated 30 years later to the barren High Arctic by the Canadian government. Similar stereotypes of the noble and stoic Native can be found in Doug Wilkinson’s documentary Land of the Long Day from 1952. In establishing an important counter movement, Aboriginal filmmakers began to produce audiovisual works in the 1960s, often through the use of community-based radio and television outlets. Kunuk started experimenting with independent video productions in 1981, and co-founded Igloolik Isuma Productions with screenwriter Paul Apak Angilirq, cinematographer Norman Cohn and actor Paul Qulitalik in 1990. Their goal was to develop independent film and media projects in order to enhance local culture and language traditions.
During that time, video and lightweight camera equipment sparked a revolution in independent video productions. As a result, Inuit storytelling values, which are based on collective and community-based activities, could be combined with alternative video to create films that allow for insights into an ‘authentic world’. The third vector in this equation is digital media and their development into user-friendly applications, which provide access to portable recording and editing equipment. Isuma’s feature films are shot on high definition (HD), a format, which allows for digital post-production on site. Digital technologies greatly enhance independent filmmaking, especially in regions where post-production facilities are hundreds of kilometres away. Rushes from a daily shoot in Igloolik can be screened on location and do not have to be sent to Montreal, which would result in lengthy delays and increased production costs. Digital technologies therefore allow Isuma producers to complete most of their film production in Igloolik.
Atanarjuat exemplifies the confluence of traditional storytelling, community-based independent filmmaking practices and new media technologies, which resulted in a film that is fundamentally different from mainstream productions. It represents an approach, which transforms ‘media that dissolve and homogenise cultures into tools of cultural preservation’ (Scott 2002). The success of films like Atanarjuat led Isuma to pioneer several other media projects such as Isuma TV, which uses the internet as a digital distribution platform for a wide variety of indigenous programming. Isuma also launched the SILA project (ww.sila. nu), an interactive website that functions as a narrative map for entry points into traditional Inuit songs, stories and historical events. In addition, Kunuk and Cohn use their public platform to raise issues of concern for Inuit communities and the world in general. For one, they have increased awareness of the high suicide rates amongst Inuit youth and the desperate living conditions many Inuit communities face due to unemployment and health risks, especially diabetes. On an international scale, Isuma is working with environmental groups to relate observations and insights from Inuit elders to researchers investigating climate change connected to global warming. The results of these collaborations were presented at the UN Climate Change Conference in 2009 and culminated in Isuma’s documentary Inuit Knowledge & Climate Change (2010).
Isuma’s feature film narratives are rooted in Inuit spirituality and symbolism, which are not explained or ‘translated’ for non-Inuit viewers so they can attain easier access to their meaning. Atanarjuat is in Inuktitut and is, in every aspect, a representation of Inuit life and customs in the Igloolik region. As a result, Atanarjuat and other Isuma films are as much a celebration of cultural continuity as they are mnemonic devices to reconnect to memories of the past. Their purpose goes beyond educational aims as they allow Inuit participants and audiences to engage and reflect upon issues that are important to the community. Within the context of colonial legacies and unresolved land claims, Isuma’s films also represent a political voice for Indigenous rights that extend beyond national borders.
In Atanarjuat, Kunuk and Cohn combined traditional storytelling with digital technology to create a unique film. Digital media production promotes participatory forms of communication because it allows smaller communities to access film production technologies. It enables Aboriginal and Inuit communities to explore issues of concern and to tell their stories in dramatic ways. Independent film practices and alternative media therefore provide the basis for Indigenous peoples to pursue social change through politics of identity and representation. Within this paradigm, cultural production is transformed into political mobilisation. According to Ginsburg (2003) this ‘cultural activism’ defines indigenous media as promoting differences rather than assimilation.
Furthermore, the decentralisation of media practices is an exercise in empowerment, which at various points intersects with mainstream media to redirect nationwide foci and international debates. Interest in Northern communities, its lands and peoples, is intensifying in scientific research, especially in regards to the environment and global warming; in international politics (i.e. sovereignty claims on the North), as well as in the popular imagination of the public, which ranges from animal preservation to tourism and using the image of the polar bear in advertising campaigns. Films like Atanarjuat therefore play a key role in contributing to a vital international cross-cultural dialogue about climate change, cultural identity and globalisation.
Doris Baltruschat
Cast and Crew:
[Country: Canada. Production Company: Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Canada Television and Cable Production Fund License Program, Canadian Television, Channel 24 Igloolik, Igloolik Isuma Productions, National Film Board of Canada. Director: Zacharias Kunuk. Producers: Paul Apak Angilirq, Norman Cohn and Zacharias Kunuk. Co-producer: National Film Board of Canada. Screenwriters: Apak Angilirq, Norman Cohn, Zacharias Kunuk, Herve Paniaq, Pauloosie Qulitalik. Cinematographer: Cohn. Cast: Natar Ungalaaq (Atanarjuat), Pakak Innuksuk (Amajuat), Sylvia Ivalu (Atuat), Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq (Oki), Lucy Tulugarjuk (Puja).]
Further Reading:
Paul Apak Angilirq, Zacharias Kunuk, Herve Paniaq, Norman Cohn, Pauloosie Quilitalik, and B. Saladin d’Anglure, Atanarjuat: the fast runner: inspired by a traditional Inuit legend of Igloolik, Toronto, Coach House Books & Isuma Publishing, 2002.
Doris Baltruschat, ‘Television and Canada’s Aboriginal Communities: Seeking Opportunities through Digital Technologies’, Canadian Journal of Communication, 29 (1), 2004, pp. 47–59.
Kimberly Chun, ‘Storytelling in the Arctic Circle: An Interview with Zacharias Kunuk’, CINEASTE, 28 (1), 2002, pp. 21–3.
Michael Robert Evans, Isuma: Inuit video art, Montréal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008. Faye Ginsburg, ‘Atanarjuat Off-Screen: From “Media Reservations” to the World Stage’, American Anthropologist, 105 (4), 2003, pp. 827–31.
Sigurjon Baldur Hafsteinsson and Marian Bredin, Indigenous screen cultures in Canada. Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press, 2010.
Sophie McCall, ‘“I Can Only Sing This Song to Someone Who Understands It”: Community Filmmaking and the Politics of Partial Translation in Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner’, Essays on Canadian Writing, 83, 2004, pp. 19–46.
Michelle Raheja, ‘Reading Nanook’s Smile: Visual Sovereignty, Indigenous Revisions of Ethnography, and Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)’, American Quarterly, 59 (4), 2007, pp. 1159–85.
A.O. Scott, ‘Reel Change’, New York Times, July 14, 2002, pp. 11–12. Monika Siebert, ‘Atanarjuat and the Ideological Work of Contemporary Indigenous Filmmaking’, Public Culture, 18 (3), 2006, pp. 531–50.
Source Credits:
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films, Edited by Sarah Barrow, Sabine Haenni and John White, first published in 2015.