BEFORE TOMORROW (Alliance, 2008) D: Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Madeline Ivalu, w/ Ivalu, Paul-Dylan Ivalu. Rating: NNNN DVD package: NNN Rating: NNNN
In the High Arctic sometime before the 20th century, an old Inuit woman (Madeline Ivalu) and her 10-year-old grandson (Paul-Dylan Ivalu) become separated from their family and must survive on their own.
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They encounter wolves and winter, but the story is less about desperate struggle than it is about the deep love between Ninioq and her grandson and the stories they tell each other while they get on with their lives.
The effect is a quiet, deep universality that seems as unforced as the unselfconscious performances and plain visuals.
The vast majority of names in the credits are Inuit, many of them familiar from Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner and The Journals Of Knud Rasmussen. The making-of doc tells us too little about their working process but clearly shows that they’re having a great time.
EXTRAS Making-of doc. Widescreen. Inuktitut audio. English, French subtitles.
