![]() |
Maliglutit (courtesy of Isuma) + The Searchers (courtesy of Warner Bros.) |
"I wanted it to be a western genre movie made entirely the Inuit way.” —Zacharius Kunuk
Despite rather obvious similarities, namely the title and central kidnapping plot, it is overly simplistic to describe Inuit directors Zacharius Kunuk’s and Nataar Ungaalaq’s Maliglutit (Searchers) as a remake of John Ford’s iconic western The Searchers. Even calling it a reimagining falls short of capturing how Kunuk’s film upends the very tradition that birthed a film such as Ford’s. To understand the key difference between the two is to confront the disparity in world view that exists between Indigenous peoples and the colonial nation states that now occupy their lands.
Both films share a similar story, based (in Ford’s case loosely) on true events. A young woman is kidnapped, and a search party is dispatched to hunt down the kidnappers and their prize. Ford’s story takes place in the late 1860s in what is now West Texas, but at the time was the Comancheria, the vast territory of the Comanches, Kiowa, and several other nations. Kunuk’s film is set in the early 20th century in a remote part of Nunavut, in the far north of Canada. Each film revels in the expansive landscape, often positioning characters against the endless land. Ford favors framing his characters in doorways, suggesting the gateway from civilization to savagery, while Kunuk prefers to prioritize the land itself, his subjects often dots against its vastness.
![]() |
Maliglutit. Courtesy of Isuma |
Ford’s The Searchers was the director’s ninth film with his star John Wayne, and was meant to be something of a departure for the two as a western. Ford intended the film to be a damning indictment of American racial policy towards Native Americans, with his hero Wayne (playing Ethan Edwards) as the face of that genocidal villainy, just as Wayne was the embodiment of Manifest Destiny in the duo’s first film together, Stagecoach (1939). Wayne’s presence and swaggering performance made it nearly impossible for audiences to accept him as the bad guy, with Max Steiner’s score highlighting the real heroes and villains. (Hint: the Comanches are not the heroes.)
Kunuk’s Searchers also features a collaboration with his longtime friend and star Natar Ungalaaq, who starred in Kunuk’s breakthrough hit, the epic Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2002). But Kunuk casts the heroes and villains within families—this is personal politics, not colonial conflict, a retelling of a community story rather than a grand political statement. Kunuk also enlisted Inuk singer Tanya Tagaq to provide the film’s haunting score.
![]() |
The Searchers. Courtesy of Warner Bros. |
Kunuk’s devotion to the “Inuit way” means his films exist alongside the communities they depict, as living documents of contemporary practice as much as displays of traditional stories and existence. Kunuk’s Searchers is an example of what a decolonized Western is, except that in this case, it would be a Northern.
BAMcinématek screens Beyond the Canon—Maliglutit + The Searchers on June 16, 2018 at 5pm, BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn.
Jesse Wente is an Ojibwe writer, broadcaster, producer, and speaker born and raised in Toronto. He spent 11 years with the Toronto International Film Festival, the last seven as the Head of TIFF Cinemathèque, and recently became the first Director of the Indigenous Screen Office in Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jessewente.
© 2018 Brooklyn Academy of Music, Inc. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.