It would be hubris indeed to proclaim the iconic status of one particular film but Ce qu’il faut pour vivre (The Necessities of Life) comes awfully close to fulfilling the role as a masterpiece of Canadian cinema. The ingredients for modern drama are there: two cultures colliding, ignorance and bigotry as the starting point for the relationship, leading to a denouement of understanding and appreciation. But more than that, this film’s greatness and strength rests squarely on the shoulders of an Inuit actor who is almost completely unknown.

From the opening frame to the last, Natar Ungalaaq’s face telegraphs emotion like no other. Pain, loss, anguish, joy, desire – they’re all there in such copious quantities that you become a part of the drama unfolding. Ungalaaq’s character, Tivii, is an Innu hunter on Baffin Island during the 1950’s. There has been an outbreak of tuberculosis and the Canadian government is out scouring the bays and fjords in an ice breaker conducting lung tests of all the Innu. Tivii is diagnosed with the disease but not his wife or children. He is forced to leave them behind and the question of who will hunt for them is left unanswered by the medical team.

Tivii is transported to a sanatorium in Quebec City to receive the treatment of the day – long months, sometimes years, bedridden and under constant medical supervision. While such isolation with fellow sufferers is bad enough, for Tivii, it is doubly so, as no one on the medical staff or any of the other patients understands Innu. Tivii meekly submits to the treatment, all the while thinking of his wife and daughters. But even that is not enough to keep him going. He decides to stop eating. The staff become desperate.

The solution to their problems comes in the form of a young Innu boy who not only speaks the language but French as well. Kaki (Paul-André Brasseur) gradually builds a bridge between Tivii and the staff and is so successful that Tivii wants to adopt the boy as his own.

This film unfolds in a bare, minimalist style. Benoit Pilon’s camera shots are slow and lean, heightening the effect of the dislocation Tivii feels when moving from the sparse and craggy land of Baffin to the treed and built-up landscape of Quebec. He marvels at the size of one tree when he arrives at the sanatorium. More than half of the dialogue is in Innu, and that creates its own dislocation on the part of the audience watching the film, matching that felt by Tivii.

The film rests on Ungalaaq’s performance, and he does this so well that the other characters are mere props to support where he goes next, what he says next, how he acts next. And while the film takes place in the 1950’s, the themes it explores are still valid today with outbreaks of Swine Flu in Northern communities with no medical facilities.

We quickly forget the Innu exist. Their population is so small and they live in an immense area of the country where we just don’t go. This film is a healthy reminder of their existence and their deep culture. It is also a healthy reminder that they, too, are a part of this country. Lest we forget.

Available on DVD.