Any wag who wished to say that this is the best Inuit-language film to have ever come down the pike, might have said equally well, if not as waggishly, that it's the worst. More objectively: the only. The "language" qualifier allows it to dodge head-to-head competition with such superior Eskimo epics as Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents and Philip Kaufman's The White Dawn (subtitled only in part), let alone Robert J. Flaherty's seminal silent documentary, Nanook of the North. With its predominantly Inuit cast and crew, headed by director Zacharias Kunuk and scriptwriter Paul Apak Angilirq, it earns points for authenticity, if not, at the same time, for ability to communicate. And it earns more of the same — but again, nothing extra — for a storyline lifted from centuries-old oral tradition: an evil curse, forbidden love, jealousy, treachery, murder, rape, patricide, and incommensurate revenge (reminiscent of the Kenny Rogers C&W oldie in which the singer avenges the rape of his beloved by beating up her attacker: that'll teach him!). One measure of how far the filmmakers are inside the culture is the unapologetic brutality and barbarism: the Inuit equivalent of a knightly joust for the hand of a maiden is to have the rivals take turns punching one another on the temple, undefended. That sort of thing, to be sure, affords the spectator a sterling opportunity to test his broad-mindedness. As storytellers, however, even as documentarists, the filmmakers are to a high degree inept. And at nearly three hours in length, the experience is a bit of an ordeal. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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