After reading this review on Salon a while back, I was anxious to get a chance to see "The Fast Runner", or "Atanarjuat." Finally on Sunday we were able to go see it at the Bethesda Row Cinema, a relatively new independent theatre in Bethesda, Maryland, north of Washington.

This movie is based on an old Inuit legend, about a young man named Atanarjuat, and I believe it was shot in Inuktitut, the huge new Inuit province of northern Canada.

It's an amazing trip back to a primitive culture and way of life that we may think we've forgotten, but really lives on in our subconscious. Watching this movie, I realized how much of our primitive culture we bring across into our so-called modern lives. Men hunt, women nurture, and everyone plays sometimes... :) That's why these legends and stories feel so good to us — they simplify everything, and make things very clear because they put them in our real language: the language of our instincts, and our natural and primitive culture.

The story is good for us, because it shows us how much we depend on one another for survival. This fact is made starkly obvious in the harsh arctic climate the characters must contend with. But it's true in our society nonetheless; just harder to recognize and easier to forget.

It's also good because it reminds us how important to our daily lives our perception of good and evil is. The group in the film contends with great evil, in the form of a couple of people, but they also must contend with the effect of that evil on their minds and hearts. They must try to banish the evildoers, but must also try to banish the cloud of darkness from their spirits.

The film also may bring up a number of other questions in viewers' minds — how much have we progressed compared to this version of life? Is our advancement meaningful? Are we better off? As for relations between women and men, maybe we've improved things, but have we ignored or neglected subtle aspects of our nature as well? Maybe. And what is a leader, a chief? What qualities must our leaders posess, and how can we choose them? I think after watching this, that democracy is far less effective at choosing leaders than a small group who can see the spirit of a man in his eyes...

This was a really great movie... :)