Eskimo Artist: Kenojuak (1964) User Reviews

Eskimo Artist: Kenojuak

[CinemaSerf · 7/10 · 11 February 2024]

Though they are not so great for natural light, I've always thought just how much are suitable igloos are for living in than pitched-roofed wooden houses when the snow and the Arctic winds are at their liveliest. That's how we meet Kenojuak and her family. Sheltering from a storm and sharing the last of their seal meat hoping it abates and they can continue their journey to the settlement of Cape Dorset. It's there than they can relax a little and she and her friends can spend time on their artwork. She draws, astonishing symbols from Inuit mythology combined with the creatures they still encounter and tales of the hunt. Almost everyone can draw, but some can also create intricate carvings that serve as stencils for paint and paper so prints can be made of their work and the word of their skills can spread south and beyond. The photography of the wilderness well captures the bleakness of their homeland but also it's pristine light and water - a water that has smoothed the rocks they seem to so effortlessly bring to life. It's all a cycle and as the sun begins to retreat and the sky takes on ever more vivid shades and hues, her young son dances to the only piece of technology we see - a wind up record player!

Kenojuak, an Eskimo artist draws stone prints from the creatures that inhabit her dreams.

[jean-lef · 9/10 · 17 August 2006]

This is a perfect documentary on art. Filmed under difficult situations (the far North tundra), the film achieves moments of true grandeur (The interior-lit igloo in the night is a stunning picture that stays in most spectators' memory) while penetrating into the extremely visual mind of Kenojuak, whose soft voice-over commentary in her native language, coos and clucks away in the background. Cinematographer François Seguillon achieves some impossible-to-take night shots, using 60's technology and the slow films of the times. The film itself describes how Kenojuak's prints are made, from her giving form to the creatures of her dreams, to the preparation of the stone models from which the prints are made. No time is wasted - this is a short film after all - yet the images border on eternity, night and the world of dreams.