L'ombra del lupo

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 .

The Far North in 1935 is the setting for this dull film. An Eskimo man falls out with his father, the tribal leader, over which of them gets "the woman". He and the woman must flee to parts unknown after he kills a man in self defense. Soon a mountie is on his trail which forces him to brave the frozen tundra alone while being stalked by a white wolf. All this sounds like it made for a good adventure tale, but it was just plain boring. And who was the moron who cast Jennifer Tilly as an eskimo? She looks about as much like an eskimo as the Reverend Jesse Jackson. This was a been there, done that, lame film from the very outset. Avoid!

I like this movie because drama of the arctic pole are rare! In this point of view, it's very original. But the settings are so Hollywood! This arctic don't seem to be so cold and Jennifer Tilly don't look like an Inuit woman. But the story is good, even if the movie had few to do with the Yves Theriault book AGAGUK (it's supposed to be the movie of the book). But it's a good piece of work. Lou Diamond Phillips is O.K.

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.

It was a France-Canada co-production to expose the life of Inuit natives settlement in far off Canadian northern nearby North Pole, as American movies dealing with their natives as white man's dependency on supplying gun fires, steel traps, alcohol, medicine and mainly trading those valuable furs addressed to American market and Europe as well as displayed in the movie, they bring the famous actors to play the main characters as the Philippine Lou Diamond Philips, the Japanese Toshirô Mifune, Jennifer Tilly, all them has somehow Mongol ancestry, upon this small detail their fit perfect as Inuit people otherwise the British Donald Sutherland as policeman.

Such coexistence at some moment they would enter in clash due inserting the poisoned booze on settlement worsening the things, whereby it gonna happen by a bear's fur got by Agaguk (Diamond Philips) sold by a nasty white trader Brown by his father Chief-shaman boozer Kromaak (Toshiro Mifune) it triggers a natural acrimony between them, Agaguk went to kill Brown for refused get back the fur, all this allied a bad relationship with his lewd father he went away with his girl Igiyook (Jennifer Tilly) whereof the couple tried survived by themselves on ice landscape, therefore it doesn't take too long appears a white policeman asking for Brown's death.

Shadow of the Wolf aside the clashes between natives and white people is underpinned in Iniut's spiritual background where someone empowered with views of future arise at leadership among bravery and others strengths, they also suppose when somebody faces the death and survives becomes in another man itself as exposed on picture, aside some natural mismatches as those artificial sets, the movie doesn't disappoint as the low ratings trie assure, it bring the way of life of this people that ought adjust on a new environment which includes the white man domain, even bad or not!!

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 1996 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.5.