This film deals with Inuktitut assimilation and the abandonment of shamanism for Christianity. The lead character, Avva or Aua, is based on one of the last traditional Inuktitut shamans, who was interviewed at length by the Greenland anthropologist Knud Rasmussen shortly after World War I. I suspect two of the character's uninterrupted narratives in the film originate in the Rasmussen documents.
There were a number of cinematic tokens of the departure of shamanistic presence. One was a drop in the quality of song during the movie, which was particularly striking because of the intrusion of von Flotow's "M'appari" early in the film. Christian hymns in the Inuktitut language sounded considerably feebler than either the original native song or the Western opera aria. I take it there is a message there about assimilation.
There was also some thought-provoking contrast to the Inuktitut people in the form of Scandinavian actors, playing (apparently) Inuktitut-speaking Greenlanders - they're portrayed shallowly, but one point made clearly is that they are more prone to brooding than the Inuktitut, of whom the shaman says, "We believe happy people should not worry about hidden things. Our spirits are offended if we think too much." Also: "Our helping spirits don't like it when people remain sad too long."
There are visual subtleties in the story that I didn't grasp at first - one of them is an unexplained character visible only in a couple of scenes but whose meaning becomes clear late in the film, and on a second viewing it made the film all the more compelling. Frankly, I felt shocked when I understood that character's function, but it was a shock of deeper understanding.
This movie was slow going, and some of its message is conveyed symbolically. I can imagine a casual viewer being bored by it. It took me a second viewing to feel I had noticed most of the authors' messages about the theme. The purposeful tedium of long, dark scenes inside igloos was eased by other scenes of sled-dogs or of harsh outdoor weather. But in general, you can hardly hope to avoid slowness when shamans are involved - they're going to give you only as much information as they choose to, and only in the forms they choose to. So get ready to wait and pay attention - the portrayal of the end of shamanism is quite powerful.
I was sorry not to find this 2006 film on DVD when I looked for it in 2019 - I finally found it for sale via iTunes.
There were a number of cinematic tokens of the departure of shamanistic presence. One was a drop in the quality of song during the movie, which was particularly striking because of the intrusion of von Flotow's "M'appari" early in the film. Christian hymns in the Inuktitut language sounded considerably feebler than either the original native song or the Western opera aria. I take it there is a message there about assimilation.
There was also some thought-provoking contrast to the Inuktitut people in the form of Scandinavian actors, playing (apparently) Inuktitut-speaking Greenlanders - they're portrayed shallowly, but one point made clearly is that they are more prone to brooding than the Inuktitut, of whom the shaman says, "We believe happy people should not worry about hidden things. Our spirits are offended if we think too much." Also: "Our helping spirits don't like it when people remain sad too long."
There are visual subtleties in the story that I didn't grasp at first - one of them is an unexplained character visible only in a couple of scenes but whose meaning becomes clear late in the film, and on a second viewing it made the film all the more compelling. Frankly, I felt shocked when I understood that character's function, but it was a shock of deeper understanding.
This movie was slow going, and some of its message is conveyed symbolically. I can imagine a casual viewer being bored by it. It took me a second viewing to feel I had noticed most of the authors' messages about the theme. The purposeful tedium of long, dark scenes inside igloos was eased by other scenes of sled-dogs or of harsh outdoor weather. But in general, you can hardly hope to avoid slowness when shamans are involved - they're going to give you only as much information as they choose to, and only in the forms they choose to. So get ready to wait and pay attention - the portrayal of the end of shamanism is quite powerful.
I was sorry not to find this 2006 film on DVD when I looked for it in 2019 - I finally found it for sale via iTunes.