Film Festival Recap: The 2009 Native American Film and Video Festival

By Joe Bendel

Held last week from March 26 to 29 at the National Museum of the American Indian in lower Manhattan, 60 award-winning shorts, features, and documentaries were screened representing indigenous media artists and communities from Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela, and the United States.

The film festival, which celebrated its 30th Anniversary this year, promotes honor to elders and the realities of the 21st Century Native American experience. Below are two feature films that were especially compelling.

‘Tkaronto’

Holding onto one’s traditional heritage in the modern world can be a challenge. Simply forging meaningful human relationships can also be hard. For Ray Morrin, a mixed-race Métis, both prove equally difficult. That search for spiritual and personal meaning in an uninspiring urban landscape drives Shane Belcourt’s Tkaronto.

Morrin is still more than a bit immature, but he is about to become a father. He needs to get serious about his life, which seems to require landing a technical advising gig on a prospective television show that would largely mock his heritage. While in Toronto (Tkaronto in the original Mohawk dialect) for an important pitch meeting, he is thrown together with Jolene Peltier, an Anishinaabe artist, at a time when both are at a crossroads in their lives.

After painting the portrait of Max, a local aboriginal Elder, Peltier is deeply affected by his gift of an eagle feather. It stirs a longing for a deeper meaning in her life and a desire to reconnect with the traditions of her ancestors. As she kills time with Morrin, an undeniable attraction starts to blossom, which further complicates their uncertain futures, considering they are both married, to white spouses.

Belcourt’s screenplay features such razor-sharp dialogue that it sometimes induces physical wincing. Morrin endures some blisteringly frank criticism as well as some teasing bordering on the cruel. While their banter is often quite witty, many of his scenes with Peltier play out like confessionals. Yet their dramatic exchanges never seem forced or artificially melodramatic, thanks to the strong on-screen chemistry of the principals.

Duane Murray is absolutely convincing as Morrin, a man who essentially sees himself as a loser, who must come to terms with his disappointments and shortcomings. As Peltier, Melanie McLaren is much more reserved in their scenes together but conveys a compelling depth of yearning, particularly in a remarkable key scene with Elder Max.

Tkaronto is a simple story, but it is told with unsparing honestly. In truth, Belcourt probably demonstrates more potential in Tkaronto as a screenwriter than as a director. His words are forceful, but his scenes are sometimes hard to follow, particularly with his frequent use of off-camera, disembodied dialogue. Ultimately, though, it detracts little from his smart script and the strong performance he elicits from the cast.

‘The Trail of Tears’

History can be messy, but that is when it is usually most interesting. Such is the case in Chris Eyre’s The Trail of Tears, the third installment of We Shall Remain, an upcoming five-film series running in conjunction with PBS’s “American Experience,” starting April 13.

A complete self-contained film with some legitimate star-power, Trail had its U.S. premiere at the opening night gala of the 2009 Native American Film and Video Festival.

Eyre became an overnight star of the Indie film circuit with Smoke Signals, his feature directorial debut, and has since helmed high-profile television projects, including adaptations of Tony Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn mysteries for PBS.

Mixing elements of the dramatic feature film with the traditional talking-head documentary, Trail reunites Eyre with the super-bad Wes Studi, recognizable for roles such as Leaphorn and supporting turns in Michael Mann’s Heat and Last of the Mohicans.

While Studi, an Oklahoman Cherokee, has portrayed many Native American characters on film, Trail represents his first Cherokee speaking role. Studi plays Major Ridge, a Cherokee leader who remains controversial to this day for his actions leading up to the Trail of Tears (the forced mass relocation of Indian tribes to reservations in Oklahoma.)

Eyre made a conscious editorial decision to eschew a traditional victimization narrative. Instead, he focuses on Ridge, his son John, their chief rival John Ross—the duly elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, and their actions surrounding the infamous trek. Indeed, very little screen time is devoted to the incident itself, which everyone should understand was a great tragedy. Instead, Eyre provides context, which means viewers actually might learn something.

Major Ridge was a prominent Cherokee leader who owned a southern plantation and, yes, a good number of slaves. A one-time ally of Ross, he was one of the signers of the Treaty of New Echota, which formally ceded the Cherokee land in Georgia and Tennessee in exchange for territory in Oklahoma, at a time when Ross was still trying to hold off the federal government. Ridge led the first wave of Cherokee settlers shortly thereafter, in what would be a much easier journey than the forced removal that was soon to come.

Eyre’s film seems to suggest that Ridge believed the preservation of Cherokee sovereignty as a nation should be their highest priority, whereas for Ross, the integrity of their National homeland was the key to their survival.

After watching Trail, it is difficult to argue that either man was definitively right or wrong. What emerges is a nuanced picture that forthrightly depicts several instances of internal violence during the power struggle between the Ridge and Ross factions.

The film also acknowledges that not all white Americans were villains, identifying support for the Cherokee cause among Northern National-Republicans (precursors of the Whigs and eventually the GOP), as well as the Christian missionaries living among them. However, Andrew Jackson understandably comes across quite badly, the case of “Indian Removal” not being the finest hour for Jacksonian Democrats in retrospect.

Studi is perfectly cast as Ridge, a complicated man of action. Despite the interrupting interview segments and Benjamin Bratt’s narration, he maintains an intensity that drives the dramatic scenes. Eyre has made an even-handed film that educates rather than lectures.

Trail will be broadcast nationally as part of We Shall Remain, beginning this month.

To learn more about the festival and the total body of work screened in the festival, please visit www.nativenetworks.si.edu

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/14631/