Star-Struck in Nunavut
Weather: -18c …. again….; wind chill –31
IQALUIT, NUNAVUT – Well, there’s a man I saw roaming around the Nunavut Language Conference today. He looked so familiar. Couldn’t quite place him though. I think I must have interviewed him before.
Maybe.
In any case, the guy was having quite the effect on people.
Two people manning the registration desk at the language conference jumped up to have their picture taken with him when he walked by.
And all day, I’ve saw elders walk up to him and shake his hand. I’m thinking maybe he works with the Inuit Circumpolar Council? Or maybe he’s a local politician I’m not familiar with?
I mulled all this over as I made my way back to the hotel in the evening. And for some reason, I get to thinking about my favourite movie scene of all time.
It’s in the Canadian film “Ce qu’il faut pour vivre.” And it’s the scene when Tivii, an Inuk hunter from Northern Quebec, tries to escape from a Quebec City sanatorium.
He’d been forced to go, without his family, for tuberculosis treatment. And when it gets too much for him, he sneaks out of the sanatorium.
The scenes that follow are like a Jean-Paul Lemieux painting come to life. ( Lemieux is a Canadian painter famous for Quebec landscapes, usually populated by a single, solitary figure.)
But back to the film!
In it, the actor barely speaks, but I can’t remember ever being so moved by a performance.. It still chokes me up every time I see it.
Suddenly I got it … ‘The Guy ‘ had to be Natar Ungalaaq.
Besides ‘Tivii’, Ungalaaq is also the Canadian actor who starred in “Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner” (www.atanarjuat.com), an Inuktitut-language film directed by Zacharias Kunuk. The movie was a sensation all over the world.
I thought about all this as I waited for the elevator in the hotel lobby. I regret that I didn’t realize who it was earlier. I would have loved to say ‘thanks’ for telling such amazing stories. But maybe it’s all for the better. Who cares what I think anyway?
But then, the elevator opened. A group got out and ‘Tivii’ walked right past me. He mingled with some friends in the lobby.
I was worried he was going to tell me off, but decided to go talk to him anyway. I figured he couldn’t have played a sensitive character like Tivii if he was a complete jerk.
So I went up to him and asked him if he was an actor. “Oh, I think we’re all actors in some way or another,” he said laughing.
Anyway, I told him how much “Ce qu’il faut pour vivre” affected me and asked him what he did to deliver the kinds of scenes he did in that movie. (The short answer: apparently the director was amazing.)
We chatted for a while and he was absolutely lovely.
So, at the risk of sounding like a gushing 15–year-old. Natar Ungalaaq is totally awesome!
