La sombra del lobo

Lou Diamond Phillips deserves a lot of credit for even tackling this subject. A well photographed movie about the lives of the Inuit, this just isn't a commercial item. The fact alone that it was shot on location must have cost a fortune. This film shows a lot of loving tender care in the making and the cast is great throughout. Too bad that it just wasn't commercial enough.

I happen to meet Lou in my town when he was appearing as King Arthur in a production of Camelot. I told him how much I liked the film and it was unfortunate that it went straight to video. I also asked him how he liked working with Toshiro Mifune.

He replied that it was a great experience, that Toshiro Mifune was a great actor and very good to work with and it was an honor to play his son in the film.

It must have been one rugged location, those films set at either of the Earth's poles usually are. The performances by Lou as the young Inuit outcast, Toshiro Mifune as his father the medicine man of the tribe and Donald Sutherland as a Mountie are uniformly excellent.

Don't miss this very neglected item.

This interesting film results to be a special remake of ¨The savage innocents ¨ the classic film starred by Anthony Quinn and Peter O'Toole and directed by Nicholas Ray . Stars a sensational Lou Diamond Phillips as ingenious Eskimos on the breathtaking and overwhelming Arctic outdoors . This is a co-production by two countries, Canada and France and distributed by Columbia TriStar . Based on the best-selling Canadian novel titled Agaguk and well adapted by Jacques Dorfmann . Dorfmann wrote the adaptation and controlled completely the film , he always considered his best work . Dorfmann investigated about Eskimos life with documentary style and developed a lyric clash among two civilizations : The primitive ,naive of the natives Eskimos and the Anglo-Xaxon civilized . The confrontation between different ways of life originated loneliness, flight and exclusion .

This overwrought picture was shot in Montreal , Quebec and Northwest territories , Canada . The technician team traveled looking for the wonderful locations of the Arctic exteriors . Spectacular and colorful cinematography in Technicolor 35 mm by Billy Williams , winner Academy Award for ¨Gandhi ¨ , showing marvelous landscapes from Arctic where wee see all type of animals : White bear , seals ,walrus , oxes , whales ,Arctic fox , among others . Sensible, evocative musical score by the great Maurice Jarre , author of soundtracks as Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zivago . Lou Diamond Phillips gives an exceptional acting along with the remarkable Jennifer Tilly . The veteran actress from Japanese classic cinema , Toshiro Mifune plays splendidly as the tough father . In a secondary role Donald Sutherland plays a patrolman who pursues to Lou Diamond accused for killing a salesman . The great and stylish producer and filmmaker Jacques Dorfman working at the peak of his powers . The motion picture is professionally written , produced and directed directed by Jacques Dorfmann . He's a good writer and especially producer as ¨Quest of fire ¨ , ¨Bethune¨, ¨ Shock treatment ¨ , ¨ Army of Shadows ¨, and occasionally director as ¨Vercingetorix¨ and this one . Well worth watching for the brooding script and wonderful location . Rating : Acceptable and passable .

A fairly interesting, if flawed, movie. Toshiro Mifune was great, and could pass for an Eskimo. Lou Diamond Phillips is awfully tall and lean, though. And Jennifer Tilly, well she is beautiful, and she acted very well, but just does not even come close to seeming Eskimo. In a way this is the old story of Europeans interacting with indigenous peoples. As one character out it, "You need us! you no longer can survive without our rifles and our metal knives!" And the chieftain admits "we will die" Should we have left these people in their Stone Age condition? I don't think so. But it did mean the end of their ways of life. The Innuit only escaped the reservation system due to the remoteness of their homelands.But back to the movie, it is worth checking out if only for the photography.

How often do you get to travel to the arctic and live with the indigenous people there who have been living pretty nearly the life of their distant and technologically primitive ancestors? Excellent cinematography, excellent musical score. Very enjoyable experience.

The plot to "Shadow of the Wolf" is nearly identical at times to the 1933 film "Eskimo" as well as 1960's "The Savage Innocents"....so much so that I am surprised that IMDB doesn't list these in the connections section. All the films are about an innocent Inuit man being chased by Canadian Mounties for a murder.

The story begins with Agaguk (Lou Diamond Phillips) killing a polar bear with a knife! Despite this heroic deed, this father (Toshiro Mifune) is a bit of a jerk and they argue. Later, Agaguk learns that his father sold the polar bear pelt to a trader...even though it was not his to sell and the trader knew this. Agaguk feels annoyed...but before he can do more, the stupid trader tries to murder him...but is killed in the process. Clearly it's a case of self-defense...though soon he is chased by a Mountie (Donald Sutherland) and this makes up the rest of the film. But on his way to look for the killer, the Mountie stops by Agaguk to investigate...and Agaguk's father takes things into his own hands.

Like too many films, the natives in the film are all played by non-native actors (Phillips and Jennifer Tilly have a little native American blood...just a wee bit...and Mifune is Japanese). I am not sure if this is a bad thing or not, as I have no idea if there were any Inuit/First Nations/Eskimo (whatever term you use) actors who could have played these roles. It simply could have been done for marketability (putting stars in the leads) or there weren't native actors able to play these roles. I have no idea.

So is the film any good? Well, the filmmakers get the look of the film right and manage to make a compelling tale. It is interesting and kept my interest throughout. It's well worth seeing...and is better than its current score of 5.8. However, if you can find it, "Eskimo" is even better...and the two films are different enough it merits seeing them both.