The Snow Walker Details

The Snow Walker

Set in 1952, the film casts Barry Pepper as Charlie Halliday - a cocky pilot with an inability to see beyond himself. While on a routine job ferrying cargo, he picks up a sick Inuit woman named Kanaalaq (Annabella Piugattuk) and the two begin a plane ride back home. Engine troubles ensue, and the plane goes down - stranding the pair in the middle of a vast and desolate area of the Arctic outback.

Based loosely on a true story, much of the film consists of their attempts to communicate, plus basic survival activities set against the stark and hauntingly beautiful landscape.

As summer disappears and winter looms, the film chronicles their abrupt clash of cultures, the eventual stripping away of prejudices and the unmasking of the truth of the human condition in the most austere physical conditions possible on Earth.

What happens emotionally is predictable: The two protagonists forge a bond of friendship and love. Yet how they wring that relationship out of their hardship is the subtle, beautiful and sometimes terrible strength of this modest film.

The Snow Walker is wonderfully acted, especially by Piugattuk, who had never acted before, but displays a naturalism that allows her to display the emotional and spiritual nature of her people

The Snow Walker is a powerful, poignant film.