Movie Review: Before Tomorrow
Alliance Atlantis Film Directed by, Stars Madeline Ivalu
Jan 30, 2009 Dominic von Riedemann
Alliance Atlantis' Before Tomorrow (also known as Le Jour Avant le Lendemain) is a powerful drama about surviving in Canada's frozen north. However, this all-Inuit film, directed by Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu (Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner), has more ambition than it can fully bring to the screen.
Before Tomorrow: Inuit Story Based on Jørn Riel's Novel
A pair of Inuit – aged Ninioq (Ivalu) and her grandson Maniq (Paul-Dylan Ivalu) – voluntarily absent themselves from their family in order to dry and smoke some meat for the coming winter. Family leader Apak (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq) isn't sure he wants his beloved son to spend the summer alone with his grandmother, especially when ailing Kuutujuk (Mary Qulitalik) joins them as well.
Apak has also heard disturbing news about pale-skinned people arriving on massive boats. The strangers offer unusual things: extremely sharp needles and knives made out of some odd material that isn't rock.
Ninioq and Maniq spend an idyllic summer hunting and drying meat for winter, a time marred only by Kuutujuk's inevitable demise. Ninioq tells him stories and Maniq learns to hunt and prepare meat, skills he'll need when he becomes a man.
However, when Ninioq and Maniq finally return to their village, they find an unpleasant surprise: their family was wiped out by a plague brought by the White Man, and the two must survive alone, knowing that winter is coming.
The Final Analysis
Before Tomorrow should have all the ingredients for a winner. The northern setting is beautifully rendered on-screen, and the filmmakers convey Ninioq's worry as she realizes that she's coming to the end of her life before Maniq has all the tools he needs to survive in the wilderness.
The cast play their parts well: although they're clearly not professionals, they play well off each other and inhabit their roles gracefully. The score by Canadian folk artists Kate and Anna McGarrigle offers the bittersweet tang of lives nearing their end.
The script could have used a few more drafts in order to remove some of the bugs and make it more powerful. It has an episodic quality, and it doesn't feel like there's an overriding arc to the story it's trying to tell, showing how Ninioq comes to the decision that drives the final few minutes of the movie.
Several scenes are longer than they need to be, while others are too short (that's also a fault of the editing). Things are shown on-screen, presented like Chekhov's Gun, and then never used again.
With Before Tomorrow, the filmmakers also appear to be making a statement about the dying Innu culture. The white man's incursions, plus global warming, have devastated the world of the Innu, and films like this are telling the tale of a culture that is clearly in free-fall.
But – in spite of the obvious empowerment that this film and Atanarjuat have offered the Inuit community – Before Tomorrow seems to revel in the inevitability of its conclusion: instead of raging against the dying of the light, the film seeks to embrace it. The producers talk about how Before Tomorrow portrays the dignity of life from beginning to end, but the film actually embraces a despair that is anything but.
Such a nihilistic approach seems contradictory when cast against the triumph against the odds that this and Atanarjuat represent for the Inuit.
Before Tomorrow gets a 5/10.
scene from Before Tomorrow
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