One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (2019) User Reviews

Forcing dependence on the independent

[gbill-74877 · 7/10 · 2 December 2020]

"This is nonsense. What kind of human being is he? How can people act like that?"

A film that's a little maddening in how elongated everything is, but at its core is a stirring conversation between an elderly Inuit man and a white government emissary who wants to relocate his family to a settlement in 1961. Through a very long discussion, we see how far apart these men are culturally, and also just how difficult it is for the Inuit translator, who haltingly translates for them with varying degrees of accuracy.

From the white man's perspective, it's the law, and the Inuit children should/must attend school. When the chips are down, he even threatens to come back later for them. He says he wants to "understand" and "help" Noah but never really tries to understand him or his culture, or help him by realizing people can live in different ways on this earth, and that his own culture is not necessarily superior. I didn't care much for the cinematography in this film since it seems to consist almost exclusively on static tight shots of faces, but it's very effective when we see the incredulity in Noah's eyes over the inhumanity of this smiling (and later strangely crying) white man. The film is effective in showing Noah's intelligence and dignity, and he reacts as any reasonable person would - how can you move me from my home? What if I forcibly tried to remove you from your home?

With that said, the film will not be for everyone because of how drawn out it is. I mean, here's the breakdown: Drinking tea in the morning - 8 minutes (interspersed with coughing) Trek across the snow in dog sleds until stopping for a tea break - 16 minutes Meeting the white man and subsequent conversation through an interpreter - 73 minutes Trek back across the snow - 5 minutes (fixed camera at head of sled, looking back at passengers the entire time) Drinking tea at home again - 4 minutes (again, literally watching them drink and munch a biscuit) Seeing the actual Noah Piugattuk in 1992, age 92, singing a traditional song - 4 minutes

I'm sure there is a point to showing how quiet their lives are while drinking tea, showing the cooperation in getting out and running along the sled to lighten the load, and showing this long, repetitious conversation where the two sides clearly just disagree (but one ominously has the government on its side) ... but the length was a lot to ask of viewers. It could have been much better, but for the perspective shift and the representation of Inuit humanity, I'm glad I saw it.

Nomadic Inuit tribe ruined by white culture

[maurice_yacowar · 10/10 · 16 February 2020]

Here Inuit sculptpr-turned-filmmaker Zaccharias Kunuk presents one of the year's best films - from anywhere. It's an intensely felt story of the tragic loss of Inuit culture. In North Baffin Island, 1961, a government agent is despatched to compel a historically nomadic people to leave their life for a "settlement." They will give up their igloos and their hunting for wooden houses with a heater and medical treatment - and their children will be put into the white man's schools. By that "progress" the people will lose their roots. Ironically, while this drama is shot in the spectacular open space of the North, its long, most compelling scenes are in close-up. Two or three faces fill the screen. The agent Boss (Kim Bodnia) speaks through the earnest but struggling Inuit translator Evaluarjuk (Benjamin Kunuk) to persuade the elder, Noah Piuguttuk (Apayata Kotiurk) to move his people off their free, nourishing land into the strictures of a settlement. But from his experience with an Anglican priest Noah has learned to distrust the white man. And for all his goodwill, tact and sensitivity, Evaluarjuk misses some key translation, like Boss's threat to remove the tribe's children to the school, and Noah's willingness to accept an improved new house - if it's on his present home site. Kotiurk in particular presents long scenes of unarticulated but eloquent interiority. Kunuk is humorous, tactful, a wholly engaging spirit, but helpless before the cultural abyss before him. Even as the relative villain Bodnia reveals a generous soul, committed to doing the best he can but unable to bridge the cultures. The film's core shows two well-meaning people simply unable to understand each other. Yet as one has the power, the other is doomed. These three performances rank with the best honoured at the recent Oscars. But the three will be as ignored in awards season as the cast of the much-honoured Parasite was. After all, the two main actors are Inuit, as those others are Korean. So guess they really weren't acting. Nonsense. These are simply great performances well beyond the actors' selves. The translator's name, by the way, is director Kunuk's homage to the master Cape Dorset carver Henry Evaluarjuk, famous for his prowling bears. The key themes are subtlely limned in the opening scene, where Noah awakens his wife and daughter in their sod hut. From the opening credits on, Noah is struggling to read the Inuktiktuk Bible that the minister gave him as (inadequate) payment for a two-month job. It's a struggle because even the Inuit's written language is new to them, a break form their oral tradition. There's no sugar for the tea, his wife informs him, but Noah appreciates its flavour anyway. He jokes that the white man considers even that tea to be food, as if it were soup. But he resolves to go hunting that day, to be able to trade for the white man's goods. Their fresh bleeding walrus head is not sufficient. As the day proceeds the culture's undermining by modernity unfurls. Noah's daughter comes along, hoping to meet a particular young man (who has "a cute bum," she giggles with a girlfriend). He does appear, on Boss's sled, but Noah rejects that relationship. The Catholic boy is unacceptable to the Anglican Noah. Again, the traditional Inuit culture has been fractured by the white man's intrusion, here its religion with its imported prejudices and suppressions. Absent the sheriff in Stagecoach, here no-one can save the Inuit from "the blessings of civilization." Those dubious blessings include that negative religion, a forced removal from their traditional life and the ruinous white man's diet. The people raised on raw fish and cariboo are seduced by the white man's sugar and empty filler biscuits slathered with jam. Noah's wife has a cough suggestive of the tuberculosis the white society also brought in. In the penultimate scene, as Noah is home enjoying that destructive diet, he implicitly reconsiders his rejection of the settlement. His wife's cough enhances the promise of medical attention. His decision is implied in the documentary epilogue - a recording of the late, real Noah Piuguttuk. In an archival tape he sings an Inuit song of his longing for the sea he has abandoned. So Noah did buckle and move to the settlement. In his yearning for the sea he yearns both for the life he abandoned and the traditional death he would have with dignity enjoyed, adrift in the sea instead of in the painful alien culture. His sole remaining tooth summarizes the cost of the white man's subversion of the Inuit culture and people. One last irony. Noah recalls the silly priest who wanted to "shoot" a polar bear with a camera instead of securing its hide and meat, and was willing to sacrifice Noah's life for that. The priest considered the Inuk's life more expendable than his own. Now Zaccharias Kunuk brings back the camera - to honour the life and culture so tragically wasted. This is truly a moving picture.

Lost in Translation

[E_D_White · 10/10 · 14 May 2020]

"One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk" was a fascinating portrait of how a seemingly banal day can become socially charged when put into historical perspective. Zacharias Kunuk is an expert at showing how nuanced ideas and emotions about liberty and traditions are lost in translation and how frustrating and confusing it can be when two completely different social/political structures start to overlap. One can not help but sympathize with the Innuit and get frustrated with the white-man named, "the Boss" and his lack of patience or understanding and his bureaucratic scapegoating to, "it's the law." There is this nice moment near the end when it seems like the white-man seems to identify with the Innuit wanting to stay on their land which makes it all the more troubling that the "Government" and the "Law" will come nevertheless. Beyond the social critique and nuances in Kunuk's characters, this movie is beautifully shot and artfully edited. I don't know why it hasn't gotten even more praise than it already has.

Humour and sadness

[sjrapd · 10/10 · 12 June 2021]

A great film best described by others on here. Illustrates how out of touch the whiteman was.