The Snow Walker

The supremely underappreciated Barry Pepper gets his Cast Away--or maybe it's his Dances with Wolves--in this captivating Canadian film about a WWII veteran bush pilot who crashes in the remote arctic Northwest Territories, circa 1953, while transporting a sick Inuit woman (Annabella Piugattuk, in a lovely debut) to a doctor. Both survive, and while Pepper's character is initially dismissive of his passenger, over the course of their odyssey of survival, she teaches him to spearfish, eat gopher, and hunt caribou, and he comes to appreciate the woman, her culture, and the harsh yet beautiful landscape. Director Charles Martin Smith (star of Never Cry Wolf)--working from a story by acclaimed writer Farley Mowat--nicely avoids becoming overtly romantic or sentimental, while keeping Pepper's pilot just on the other side of likeability: we want him to survive, but also feel he genuinely needs this awakening. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include cast and crew interviews and a "making-of" featurette. Bottom line: a small but solid extras package for a small but solid film.] (M. Johanson)