Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

Lot 47 Films | Release Date: June 7, 2002

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

91	METASCORE Universal acclaim based on 29 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Kenneth Turan

Nearly three hours long, and deliberately paced at that, this first feature ever in the Inuit language is a demanding experience. But the rewards for those who risk the journey are simply extraordinary. Read full review

100

Lisa Nesselson

The first-ever screenplay written in the Inuit language, Inuktitut -- and the first time's a charm. Read full review

100

Jack Mathews

Don't miss The Fast Runner. If you do, you will deprive yourself of not only one of the most intriguing feature-film projects in decades and enough plain-spoken anthropology for three credits at Harvard, but one of the most flat-out entertaining movies of the year.

100

Lisa Schwarzbaum

Stunning, fully formed masterpiece. Read full review

100

Dana Stevens

Not merely an interesting document from a far-off place; it is a masterpiece. Read full review

100

Richard Corliss

It is a ripping yarn and a spectacularly new and odd vision. Read full review

100

Sean Axmaker

Some may find it slow. I found it utterly spellbinding. Read full review

100

J. Hoberman

So elemental in its means yet so cosmic in its drama, it could herald a rebirth of cinema. Read full review

100

Michael Wilmington

A landmark movie that becomes a priceless entryway into a distant land and its people, few of whom will ever seem as foreign and far away again. Read full review

100

Patrick "Flick" Harrison

This is quite possibly the best Canadian film of all time. Read full review

100

Roger Ebert

An experience so engrossing it is like being buried in a new environment. Read full review

100

Shawn Levy

A gorgeous, engrossing, utterly alien and fresh movie that has the human truth and impact of classic Greek myth and the overwhelming beauty and mastery of the greatest epic films.

David Edelstein

One of the most enthralling three hours you'll ever spend at the theater. Read full review

Paul Malcolm

The first REALLY great mythic film of the summer has arrived. Read full review

Andrew O'Hehir

It's a difficult film to follow and at 172 minutes is maybe a half-hour too long. But simply as a sensory experience The Fast Runner is amazing. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Exciting not as ethnography but as storytelling, as drama, and as filmmaking. Read full review

New Times (L.A.)Bill Gallo

An authentic and thrilling glimpse into Inuit culture and tradition.

Marjorie Baumgarten

The perfect antidote to the summer heat in Austin, more refreshing even than a dip in our chilly holy waters of Barton Springs. Read full review

Rene Rodriguez

More than once during The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat), it's easy to forget you're watching a movie. Read full review

Steven Rea

This long (nearly three hours), revelatory movie is both a thrilling adventure about endurance and survival, and an elegiac examination of centuries-old tribal culture, fast-fading in the new millennium. Read full review

Megan Lehmann

It is an important, thoroughly bewitching work of art. Read full review

Loren King

Magically transports the viewer across time and space. As it does so, it becomes a humbling reminder of the universality of the human experience. Read full review

Lawrence Toppman

If you're put off by deliberate filmmaking (or subtitles, though the movie doesn't have much dialogue), you're in the wrong spot. If not, you'll see why voters gave "Atanarjuat," as it's officially called, a 2002 Oscar nomination for best foreign film. Read full review

Keith Phipps

Director Zacharias Kunuk captures that feeling well, but he never quite develops it into a theme epic enough to fill Atanarjuat's scope. His film is by turns mesmerizing and trying, with enough of the former to make the latter worthwhile. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineKen Fox

Not only is it a reintroduction to a fascinating culture that has survived 4,000 years in a remote and most inhospitable climate, but it's also the first film ever directed by an Inuit filmmaker and featuring an all-Inuit cast. Read full review

Peter Rainer

At times it's plodding and inchoate, but there's certainly nothing else like it in the movies right now, and it has at least one great sequence. Read full review

David Sterritt

Its refusal to draw solid lines between "good" and "evil" characters is more sophisticated than the psychology of most current commercial pictures. It's well worth a trek to a theater adventurous enough to show it. Read full review

Michael Sragow

By all means, buy a ticket to The Fast Runner, but don't go expecting a masterpiece; actually, in its first hour, the dramaturgy and staging of scenes set in igloos are cramped and amateurish.

Mick LaSalle

It's an endurance test. Though never boring, the movie is a fairly long slog through the snow. Read full review