Before Tomorrow: Why must we die?

Before Tomorrow is a unique cinematic experience. I felt incredibly blessed I was able to watch it- and it was only by random chance that I decided to go. Once the film begun I realized that I was meant to witness this beautiful and tragic tale. The film’s main narrative surrounds a boy and his grandmother dispossessed from their Inuit tribe whose fate they alone escaped. To survive they narrate and create stories. The grandmother leads with great burden in her heart but with complete love speaking of a greater place and they wander two lone seekers towards an unreachable horizon. What would it be like to be the last two people on earth?

The harsh and untamable force of the Arctic environment, the experience of almost complete loss and grief and the physical turmoil of desperate search for life presents a very different and pathos reality over idealized utopia of grandmother’s story. There is an underlying sensation of endlessness which brings out a vicarious fear for audiences, as they imagine the horror of being ‘left behind’. However, the film is an uplifting one, with a beautiful message and a powerful image of the Inuit as joyful, loving humans who depend upon the powerful ties within their tribe and laugh heartily at the very newly discovered oddities of western culture blissfully unaware of it’s threat. The film presents this full circle- the spirits of those passed are called upon for guidance throughout with a beginning and closure of complete joy as given by the gift of family.

Presently lusciously, the cinematography generously documents with great detail and affection both the breathtaking and encapsulating landscape of the Tundra and the genuine presence and poignancy of its inhabitants. Not unlike a dream or meditation, the filmic rhythm slowly laps onwards, each moment savoured and given time to settle and each small piece of the journey moving us towards an enlightened state. The all female Arnait Video collective of North Canada have community, cultural preservation and storytelling down to a beautiful art form. Find and See Before Tomorrow.