Final Rating: 4.5/5
As Indigenous cinema continues to expand and rightfully take up space next to the works of settlers, we are witnessing a new filmic language being explored. An underrepresented group of people who rarely get their stories told in front of mass audiences are the Inuit people. Inuits live in some of the coldest and most remote places on earth, calling Nunavut, The Northwest Territories, Alaska and Greenland home. We often only get brief glimpses of this community through news reports and the like. There was the legendary 2001 Inuktitut film from director Zacharias Kunuk, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, which brings to life an Inuit legend completely shot in the Arctic starring all Indigenous people. There is a small, but thriving, arts community in the Territories of Canada, but it doesn’t often make it to wider audiences.
Co-directors Lucy Tulugarjuk and Carol Kunnuk have crafted a film that is as much fictional as it is reality. Tautuktavuk (What We See), plays out like an Italian Neorealist film, something that is akin to the works of Vittorio de Sica and Roberto Rossellini. The film is set up as two elder sisters, Saqpinak played by one half of the directors Carol Kunnuk, and Uyarak played by the other director Lucy Tulugarjuk, separated in different parts of the country during the initial wave of COVID-19 lockdowns.
Saqpinak lives in Igloolik, Nunavut, where she is a local reporter that covers community events and interviews people. Her sister Uyarak is living in Montréal needing to escape the rural town in Nunavut where she lived in order to seek therapy and recover from abuse that she suffered from a boyfriend. Unfortunately when COVID hit and lockdowns went into effect it was impossible for Uyarak to return home. The film is structured to show both of the women’s lives, while the loose narrative comes from their Zoom calls they have with each other advancing the plot. When lockdowns finally ease up, we get to witness the return of Uyarak to Igloolik to reunite with her sister and family.
Shot using a documentary approach using only real locations, no sets, and only with natural and source lights you immediately get a cinéma vérité feel. The stories that Tulugarjuk and Kunnuk tell are all based on true events that happened to family and friends, which adds to a heightened sense of realism. Saqpinak takes care of her grandchildren while also taking a videographer with her to cover things like a drum circle that continues to meet up despite COVID restrictions in place. Uyarak on the other hand goes about her life in Montréal trying to stay connected to her Inuit roots while she is in therapy. She visits other Indigenous people and gets her first tattoo, something that is a sacred rite of passage for most Inuits.
We learn early on that Uyarak is separated from her community since she needed to flee Nunavut in order to get the help she needed after being in an abusive relationship. She struggles with remembering details, which causes her to not be able to fully process her trauma. Saqpinak is able to fill in gaps as she was the one who found Uyarak after she ran out of her house from her abuser in only shorts and a t-shirt, a very dangerous condition to be in during the winters in Nunavut. Slowly as Uyarak is able to start healing we learn that Saqpinak has her own demons she is battling and is unable to bring them forward.
The film highlights how during COVID people who are in abusive relationships experienced far more hardships than expected after being forced to be locked up with their tormentors. People in rural and isolated communities already had to deal with such scenarios that were made far worse by the pandemic as the police, community members and even families do nothing to prevent repeat abuse.
The film’s connection to the most famous and well known Inuit film, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, runs deep. Atanarjuat’s director Zacharias Kunuk is a producer on Tautuktavuk and Uyarak mentions having worked on the film. In reality Lucy Tulugarjuk did perform in Atanarjuat, as did fellow Tautuktavuk actors Apayata Kotierk and Madeline Ivalu.
Despite the film being filled mostly with non-actors, nothing ever feels fake or amateurish. The relationship between Saqpinak and Uyarak is natural with plenty of real chemistry between the two directors playing sisters. Seeing the real community of Igloolik playing themselves going about their day-to-day lives, going grocery shopping at the Co-Op, seal hunting, gathering for a community dinner and more, makes the film feel more like a slice of life documentary rather than a scripted drama. When we learn more about the characters, mostly through the Zoom calls before later transitioning to when the sisters are together, it adds a suspenseful layer to everything as you start to look at some of the men differently than they have been portrayed.
The film is glacially paced, but never boring. Despite its rustic feel, it is never inauthentic. It’s an Inuit film that connects the past of Atanarjuat with the present. Tautuktavuk (What We See), is a breathtaking endeavor that should go down as one of the stunning achievements of Canadian cinema. Once again showcasing that the best films coming out of Canada these days are from Indigenous filmmakers.
Tautuktavuk (What We See) was seen during the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Thank you to Roundstone Communications for the screener.
