Cinema of Emancipation and Zacharias Kunuk’s Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

• Main Author: Bohr, Marco
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Edinburgh University Press 2015
• Subjects: Igloolik; Barclay; inuit
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694174.003.0006

This chapter offers stylistic and thematic analyses of the cinematography and strategies of visual storytelling of Zacharias Kunuk’s Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001). Bohr provides an alternate reading of the Igloolik-based group Isuma’s best-known and Cannes award winning film. Bohr identifies distinctive narrative techniques and cultural themes of the film, which tie it both to traditional Inuit myths and legends and to European art cinema, concluding by highlighting the ways in which Atanarjuat situates local practices in a global popular culture framework. Drawing on the concept of Fourth Cinema first proposed by Barry Barclay, Bohr positions Atanarjuat in the relation to emerging global international indigenous feature film production as well as to Michelle Raheja’s concept of visual sovereignty.