Canada, 2003
Director: Charles Martin Smith
Cast: Barry Pepper, Annabella Piugattuk
Score: ***

The Snow Walker is a man versus nature tale featuring northern arctic landscapes, with luscious effects which include swarms of mosquitoes descending from a blackened sky, torrential rains and close-ups of seldom seen creatures like the white owl and arctic squirrel.  Shot on location in areas north of Churchill, Manitoba to stand for the Canadian arctic, the film concerns a brash bush pilot Charlie Halliday (Barry Pepper, the sniper from Saving Private Ryan), a ladies man and war veteran, stranded with a sickly Inuit girl, Kanaalaq (Annabella Piugattuk) after his plane crashes down hundred of miles from civilization on the rugged and barren arctic tundra.  Taken as dead by the plane charter company, Charlie and Kanaalaq eventually journey in the direction of an Inuit village as winter approaches and the ground turns into ice and snow.

Based on Farley Mowat’s (Never Cry Wolf) short story, Walk Well My Brother, The Snow Walker offers ample opportunities for adventure, clash of cultures, triumph of the human spirit over nature’s unforgiving elements and perhaps a little romance.  Writer and director Smith clearly has his heart with the local Inuits.  The white man is portrayed as indecisive, impetuous and impulsive while the Inuits are stable, intuitive and sacrificing.  Having his training with Disney – Never Cry Wolf was a Disney film and Martin went on to also direct Air Bud – it is not surprising that his new film follows in the same footsteps.  The strongest words in the script are ‘son of a ***censored***’ and the film’s family-friendly feel prevents it from having the strength and raw energy of say, the recent disaster film Touching the Void or the recent Inuit movie Atanajuart, the Fast Runner.

The film is captivating and earnest enough, with sufficient frictional interplay between the lead and the girl with an arduous journey just scary enough for a whole family to view.  Still, one only wishes that she would learn from him as much as he from her or that the film contained more gruesome scenes to more realistically evoke the horror of being stranded in the far north.

Review by Gilbert Seah