Back on 21 August 2002 I alerted you to the then-recent film Atanarjuat.
I saw it a month ago and here are some observations.  I don’t go to the
cinema often enough to call the following a ‘review’ and, in any case, I
focus here on what I see as most relevant to Evolutionary Fitness – and
plenty was!

The film is a full-length (over three hours) professionally filmed story
set in Canada’s Arctic north around 1,000 AD.

The plot of the film is apparently traditional, and if it does not itself
reach back 1,000 years, the ingredients do: men fighting for women; women
competing for men – ruthlessly; one seductress is determined to win the
film’s hero; there is murder, intrigue, patricide and deceit.

The plot is played out in two settings: the arctic wilderness and, more
strikingly, the large igloos which housed an extended family.

All the tools, clothing, food, sleds, dog teams, kayaks, tents etc. are as
authentic as they could make them.  These props were superb.  Bone knives
cut reindeer flesh that is eaten raw.  Multi-layer polar bear skins keep
out the cold.  In the igloo a tiny, frugal flame burns away providing a
dull light but does not consume so much oxygen that the inhabitants
suffocate.  Here my 21st century Western biases were shocked into
realizing how different tribal life is from mine today.  I had exactly the
same impression when I read William Buckley’s account of his 35 years as a
member of an Australian Aborigine tribe 1801-35 – and I am sure it would
apply in many other settings: the claustrophobic atmosphere of the igloo
was not just physical, it was social.  There was absolutely no privacy:
sex, belching, and unwashed human bodies were cramped together;
individuality would have been death.  Indeed, it was individuals who broke
the mores – and whose behaviour was outside the accepted and prescribed
boundaries – who shaped the plot.  ‘Unscripted’ behaviour in this tightly-
scripted society had unpredictable outcomes.

At the beginning of the film’s the narrator says ‘Evil came – no-one knew
where or when’.  And this – to me – totally unsatisfactory explanation was
clearly no problem to the Inuit.  Their acceptance of the total absence of
what I might call a ‘beginning’ to the story was emblematic of their world
view – pre-scientific, unquestioning of the sorts of things we probe,
question, strive to understand.

We think of 21st century activity patterns – exercise – and diet as
distinguishing us from hunter-gatherers and we discuss on this list how
best to recreate in some way aspects of Paleolithic life to bring us more
closely into line with our evolutionary inheritance.  Atanarjuat brought
home to me that the intimate sharing of social space, the knife-edge
relationships that often exploded violently are all aspects of Paleo life
that I will endeavour to understand but have no wish to participate in.  I
can retire to my study or my shed or go shopping or go rowing with people
who are unrelated to me and who I never come across when I am not rowing –
I can escape.

In Atanarjuat, we see the bullying, ganging up, taunting, merciless
teasing and how the victim has to grin and bear it; he cannot leave the
room.  And when they are outside, hunting, they are constantly thinking of
the relationships back home – being driven by them in fact.  Formal
relationships are important, too: one woman spends some time explaining
how her mother was also her grandmother as a result of marriages.  This is
not a ‘curiosity’ to her; this is a significant reality which establishes
for her a complex set of relationships and expectations with others that
influence her life.

About the only totally unsatisfactory aspect of the film was the dental
state of the actors: their mal-formed jaws, decayed and twisted teeth
showed they were 21st century actors, not 11th century characters!  The
acting was a little clumsy and it is clear that many of the extras were
nervous participants in the film, but covered for their nervousness by
over-acting.

This film has done a lot to alert me to my tendency to
uncritical ‘romantic primitivism’ and has opened my eyes to aspects of
hunter-gatherer life that I had not previously considered.  It reinforces
Daniel Quinn’s message that we must go forward, not back.

Don’t believe the reviews you read of the film.  All those I read,
including that in the film’s brochure, fail to describe the film I saw.
See it if you can!

Keith

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