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Destinations: A Canadian Inuit Village, Montreal, London and Dresden, 1931-1965
It‘s 1965, an Inuit Village, the Northwest Territories of Canada: A visiting cartographer (John Cusack) is approached by an old, disheveled native named Avik (Jason Scott Lee), who tells him his maps are outdated, but he can assist. He then relates a strange, incredible story:
1931, the same frozen Inuit settlement: A plane arrives carrying an earlier mapmaker, Walter Russell (Patrick Bergin). He befriends young Avik (Robert Joamie), a lively half-Inuit, half-white boy, who has tuberculosis (“the white man’s disease”), so he flies him to a strict convent hospital in Montreal for treatment. There, Avik’s infectious personality charms Albertine (Annie Galipeau), a young Metis girl (half Indian, half-white), and they become fast friends, laughing and breaking the occasional rule. But while Avik’s looks are Inuit, Albertine can pass for white, so she will be able to join “respectable” society. The nuns therefore demand the children end their friendship, but when they refuse, the convent sends her away, breaking their hearts. As a remembrance, Avik keeps an x-ray of the scar where they performed surgery on Albertine’s heart.
Ahead to 1938, Walter Russell is back at the settlement: Avik, now grown, helps him with another task, and learns about the war with the Germans. When Walter leaves, Avik gives him the x-ray, begging him to locate Albertine on his behalf. Soon after, the tribe is starving; they decide Avik’s half-white status is the reason, so they abandon him. In despair, he departs to join the war effort. He becomes a Bombardier stationed in London, and succeeds in finding Albertine (Anne Parillaud), who still loves him–but he learns she is in a relationship with another man: Walter Russell.
Map of the Human Heart is a story of true friendship, of promises made and kept; of the kind of passion that lasts past the first date, the third, long separations, and impossible odds. Albertine’s every breath waits on the reports back from his bombing squadron, and Avik goes to astonishing lengths to fulfill her childhood dreams.
The setting moves from the Arctic to Montreal, London, and then to a depiction of the bombing of Dresden that I promise you’ll never forget. The aerial photography throughout the film is stunning. There are moments and places for lovemaking that are as inventive, sweet, and breathtaking as you’ll find in any film.
But most entrancing are the two actors together, as children, and then again, as adults. But there isn’t a cloying sentimental note in the film. These two childhood friends have to make terrible choices to survive and love each other, in a world of daunting cultural divides and the nightmares of war.
Map of the Human Heart is about a costly, beautiful love between friends, poured out both tenderly and fiercely. It’s a film that will warm and haunt your heart long after it’s over.
