Indigenous Representational Sovereignty: Once Were Warriors and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

Abstract

This chapter discusses films adapted by Indigenous filmmakers from Indigenous source material: Once Were Warriors (1994), adapted by Māori filmmaker Lee Tamahori from Alan Duff’s novel and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001), adapted by Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk for the Inuit production company Igloolik Isuma from an Inuit Traditional Story. This chapter examines the adaptations’ relationships Indigenous representational sovereignty and Barry Barclay’s notion of Fourth Cinema. Both internationally successful adaptations largely made with crew members from their respective communities, these films demonstrate that there is no monolithic version of Indigenous self-representation and self-determination. Controversial in both its incarnations, Once Were Warriors focuses on late-twentieth-century urban Māori life. Although the novel and film grapple with the legacy of colonialism, Pākehā presence is minimal in the novel and virtually absent from the film. Atanarjuat eschews non-Indigenous presence completely in its setting centuries prior to colonial contact, focusing on the fallout of homicidal discord within a community. Adapting an Inuit Traditional Story, entirely in Inuktitut, Atanarjuat derives from a source ‘text’ that exists in several different versions, with different resolutions to the community’s crisis. Both these adaptations alter their sources’ narrative resolutions, complicating questions of fidelity with respect to Indigenous culture.