North of North is a funny and compelling tale about an Inuk woman in a small village in far northern Canada. It is a woman’s story, written and directed by women, and starring Anna Lambe, who was actually born in Nunavut and is an Inuk actor.
North of North begins in Spring when the Inuit people are ready to celebrate not dying over the winter. Siaja (Anna Lambe) has more than Spring on her mind. She’s 26 years old, married to a pretty terrible guy named Ting (Kelly William). She has a 7 year old daughter Bun (Keira Cooper) and a burning desire to get out of her marriage and find a job.
I had to look it up, so maybe you need to know, too. Inuit refers to the people, while Inuk is the singular form.
Anna Lambe as Siaja is cheerful, smart, good with people, and a good mom. She applies for a job with the clueless white village administrator Helen (Mary Lynn Rajskub). She wants to be an event planner and find ways to keep the community in touch throughout the year, not just in Spring. Helen hires her to be an assistant, a job where she does event planning but for less pay. Siaja makes her boss look good but is never given credit for any of it.
Siaja moves back into her mother’s house. Neevee (Maika Harper) isn’t entirely welcoming, but Siaja doesn’t entirely want to be there, either.
The big twist in the story involves two men who arrive in the village to evaluate it as location for Arctic studies. Alistair (Jay Ryan) has been there before and knows people. Kuuk (Braeden Clarke) is almost Inuit royalty but mostly lives in Montreal.
The Inuit culture is part of everything. It isn’t explained. It just is. These are Inuit people living their lives and we are simply watching. Most of the secondary roles were filled by Inuit actors. If there’s another season of this series, I would like to see even more. A cliffhanger at the end suggests there’s plenty more story to tell about Siaja, her family, her love life, and her community. Neevee’s story has much more to build on, too.
Despite references to crimes of colonialism and children taken away to residential schools, the series is definitely a comedy. There are eight short episodes, which is plenty of time to learn to love these beautiful characters and want to spend more time with them.
The women directors on this Netflix series are Anya Adams, Danis Goulet, Aleysa Young, Zoe Leigh Hopkins, and Renuka Jeyapalan.
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I watched the first episode last night and enjoyed it. But I wonder how genuine it is about the culture it portrays. For example, Siaja’s clothes are beautiful and outrageous compared with the others in the community. She’s loud and outspoken, which I can see is going to push a transition in her status. And maybe that’s the point. But how believable is it? I will continue to watch to find out.
I watched another series, Finding Ola, which was a similar story of an Egyptian woman leaving her marriage and finding herself. I didn’t feel uneasy about this one. I also didn’t see her as representative of her culture; she was just a modern woman in a certain setting figuring things out for herself.
I do like to see and learn about people with other cultural backgrounds. But maybe Netflix should not be my main source of information.
Anna Lambe has given interviews about how important the fashions and the footwear were to the story, so I think it’s authentic.
I’ve read up a little, and I feel much better now. The show was filmed in the Arctic, where Inuit co-creators Stacey Aglok-MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril live. Everyone involved in the show is committed to making it authentic. And maybe that involves dispelling some preconceived ideas about Inuit people, from people like me.