Strong and Moving!

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I have this film on VHS and I also recently watched it on APTN. Really good drama that also has a moral lesson that goes with it. I think this film teaches viewers to never take people for granted, especially relatives as it showed here. I believe that evil lurked throughout this film because of the main antagonist brought all that evil to the People and their village. Unfortunately evil is everywhere and wherever there is good, evil is not very far behind. Later on in the film when Oki, the main antagonist killed his own father, he made it look like his father accidentally tripped and fell on his own knife. Perhaps Oki was jealous of his father's success as a good hunter. I don't know for sure... I never understood why he killed him. Anyways... I really liked this one since it's an all Inuit cast ... produced and directed by Inuit! That's why I give this one a 9 out of 10.

The first movie ever filmed entirely in Inuit has a slightly convoluted plot, focusing on treachery among a group of people in the Arctic. It had the feeling of a Greek tragedy or Shakespeare play, despite taking place in Greenland (or some place similar). "Atanarjuat" - meaning "The Fast Runner" - is most memorable for showing a culture that we don't usually get to see. A few months after I saw it, I went to college, and one of my friends there remembered the same scene that I did: the man running naked across the ice.I should say that the end of the movie broke my concentration when they ran the credits and showed the crew. But for the most part, I found it to be a very impressive film. Definitely one that I recommend.

The film is so bad on so many scores I can only surmise that a PC need to be kind to the culture of Eskimos is behind the lavishment of praise. This Canadian film won all its country's honors? Let's not forget that Canada does not call its aboriginal peoples American (Canadian) Indians or Native Americans (Canadians), rather the PC numbingly (& ultimately meaningless) First Nations. Accordingly, the Eskimo culture has been re-termed Inuit, after 1 of several languages spoken in the Canadian Arctic- a bit of Inuit cultural imperialism, eh? I'll call an Eskimo an Eskimo- a term derived from yet another Native lingo. Do I say I live in the EU (Estados Unidos) because a Spaniard would associate that acronym with the USA, rather than the European Union? Did we call the USSR the CCCP? Of course not!…. The characters are utterly clueless of any depth to life, the director has no sense of narrative nor editing skills, nor any ability to transcend stereotypes (just compare this dreck to the delightful Native American comedy of a few years back- Smoke Signals- with a strong script & well-developed characters by Sherman Alexie), the visuals are poorly constructed & dull, & the score is predictably laced with mind-numbingly obvious chants & gutturals. While not the worst film I've ever seen, given its indie-artsy buildup (generally more credible than flat-out Hollywood Oscar buzz), I have to term Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner the most disappointing film in a very long time. About the only positive thing about Eskimo culture that can be discerned from this film is that they will not have to be subjected to it- at least not for a few more centuries!

This is a beautiful example of passionate film-making, and mesmerizes from the beginning. As an American, I was COMPLETELY ignorant of the Inuit, and decided to rent this film mostly due to word of mouth. Stick it out through the first half hour: getting past the difficult names does take some effort. But it's awesomely rewarded by the next two hours. The landscape will take your breath away, and the story will hold you captive. Underneath the sheer artistry, closely examine the fight against "evil-spirits:" it's even relevant to today's struggle against the so-called powerful. What struck me particularly was how naturally the characters understood the razor-thin balance between life and starvation.Simply put, I was breathless after seeing this film.I could recommend this film on the cinematography alone. Adding in the screen writing, acting, and the simply groundbreaking aspect of Inuit film-making, you cannot put off seeing this film.