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On this page: NUISANCE BEAR

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See also: SHADOWS FILM FESTIVAL | Last update 1.Nov.26

Nuisance Bear
Review by Rich Cline | 4/5

dir Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden
prd Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden, Will N Miller, Michael Code, Teddy Leifer
with Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons, Saad Kassis-Mohamed, Michael Code, Eric Anoee, Joe Karetak, John Tatty, David Kuksuk, Brian Aglukark, Gordy Ikakhik, Leo Ikakhik
release US 6.Nov26,
UK 4.Dec.26
26/Canada A24 1h29

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Expanded from a 2021 short, this documentary follows a young polar bear through various encounters with humans. Of course, filmmakers Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden are actually exploring bigger themes from climate change, to the legacy of colonisation and how culture impacts nature. These issues to swirl lightly through the film, maintaining the focus on two native residents: this engaging bear and Inuit narrator Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons.

Humans and polar bears generally avoided each other for centuries until Europeans arrived, building towns and disrupting natural rhythms. And now the winter freeze is arriving later in the year, so the bears more boldly explore towns, with an increasing number of attacks. In Churchill, rangers try to control them, and they tranquillise and tag this particular bear before releasing him in the wild, intentionally traumatising him so he'll stay away. Cameras follow him north to Arviat, arriving just before kids hit the streets for Halloween and the annual bear hunting licences are handed out.

Narrated in Inuktitut by Gibbons, the film has a remarkably personal tone, especially as he reluctantly shares a story about how his son was killed by a polar bear. He also speaks from his memory of how things used to be in this area before the shift in both climate and commerce. With a steady pace, the film's skilful camerawork and sound mix continually find surprising details. This includes scenes involving rows of wildlife photographers and busloads of tourists chasing bears, sometimes getting frighteningly close to these beautiful, hulking creatures and their cubs.

Of course, this isn't actually a story about bears. Gibbons observes that bears and humans are both powerful and dangerous. Bears are only doing what their instinct tells them to do, so his larger concern is for what foreigners have done to his culture, forcing people to change their traditions, homes, education and work. Now the rangers are doing the same thing to the bears, and Gibbons asks if perhaps this is making them unpredictable, further eroding the balance between man and nature. So the film becomes a reminder that we still have a lot to learn from the old ways.

themes, violence 27.Oct.26

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See also: SHADOWS FILM FESTIVAL