We’re taken into the sterile walls   of the Qallunaat Studies Institute. Earnest lab techs and scientists, sporting “QSI” caps, escort an Aryan looking teen to an exam room where he finds another unwitting patient; once inside both are meticulously jabbed and studied, even submitting to facial measurements.  The older specimen, haplessly, has his face pressed onto a photocopier for a quick image.   

Welcome to satirical payback, Inuit style.  

Qallunaat (Why White People are Funny)  is Canadian filmmaker Mark Sandiford’s irreverent look at Western ethos through the eyes of the Inuit, who for generations were the cultural lab rats of anthropologists, national governments and Arctic explorers.  The Inuit term for white people, Qallunaat (pronounced howl-u-not) is at times laugh out loud funny and an insightful analysis.  However, achieving both in a 50 minute film is a difficult task, one Sandiford struggles to pull off seamlessly. 

As the title suggests, you expect a parody and Qallunaat  delivers.  The QSI building, architecturally Western, nods to the stereotypical igloo we’ve seen on ice cream cartons and cartoons.  The Caucasians depicted onscreen are hyper-white—blond, bland, and arrogantly clueless; disregarding common sense when trying to dominate the unfamiliar Arctic environment.  As expected, they fail miserably and the Inuit are amused and amazed by their lack of cultural acuity.  Another scene, at the “Department of White Man’s Affairs,” shows whites lining up to receive an assigned number ID since their European names are just too darn difficult to pronounce.  

The mocking portrayal of Caucasians is interspersed with authentic film clips of Inuits from the early    and mid 20^th century.  One video, produced in 1956 by the National Film Board of Canada, condescendingly commends Eskimos for their “quick ability to pick up imitative skills” and “good humor.”  Whereas the racism and superciliousness in the videos may be comical by today’s standards, they relay the prevailing belief of hundreds of years.  It’s that realization that makes the ridicule of white society in Qallunaat  mild compared to the ravaging Natives endured by comparison. 

The fictitious segments in the film are interspersed with legitimate interviews with Inuit scholars, writers and activists discussing the more curious aspects of Western lifestyle as well as their own personal experiences at the hands of the crushing mass culture.  Forget political niceties, those interviewed are straightforward and frank, sometimes emotionally so.  

Essayist Zebedee Nungak, seated next to his white grade-school teacher, relays his childhood pain of being forced to sit inside a classroom on a spring day when his ancestral traditions beckoned him to be out hunting.  Long since retired, the aging teacher physically squirms on camera as he acknowledges his past ignorance. Light-hearted stories are likewise shared, including a young performer’s revulsion at the “detergent-musty” odor of her Caucasian hosts in southern Canada.   It’s illuminating; it’s honest, and refreshingly without guilt-ridden bromides. 
 

Clearly, if you’re white, it’s not comfortable hearing yourself described as smelly and personally rigid.  But that’s the point; the point Qallunaat  makes effectively and never ever mean-spirited. That being said, Sandiford’s docu-parody would have been stronger as two separate films—one a biting satire, the other a thoughtful dialogue of the impact Western “civilization” has wreaked on the indigenous Arctic society. 

But it wasn’t.  And the back and forth between fiction and fact, satire and seriousness, weakens the overall punch Sandiford delivers.  Nevertheless, it’s a gutsy little film with Inuits holding the camera and microphone. That alone makes Qallunaat (Why White People are Funny)  a must-see.  For whites, for Natives, for all ethnicities whether we're smelly, rigid, or members of the QSI.

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Qallunaat (Why White People are Funny)  can be purchased through the National Film Board of Canada. For more information on the film, please visit Mark Sandiford’s Beachwalker Films website: www.beachwalkerfilms.com