By: Petra Chase, Arts & Culture Editor
Content warning: mentions of colonial violence, residential schools, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and racism.
While education is an important aspect of reconciliation, we must also take action beyond just learning, and support Indigenous communities.
Beans (2020)
Where to watch: Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+
Content warning: depictions of sexual violence, self harm, and violence.
Beans is the nickname of 12-year-old Mohawk girl, Tekehentahkwa (played by the phenomenal Kiawentiio). Set during the events of the 1990 Oka Crisis, a 78-day standoff in two Mohawk communities with Quebec forces, Beans must escape the violence with her mother and sister while her father defends the land. This film depicts the brutal violence these communities endured, with real footage of the standoff and street interviews demonstrating the public’s racism.
All this happens at a time when Beans is figuring out who she is and feeling the pressure to mature with the kids around her. One of the most salient lessons she learns from her older friend, April (Paulina Alexis), is learning not to feel pain. Determined to follow April’s tough exterior and words of advice, she becomes defiant towards her protective family. After being violently ambushed by racists with bricks thrown at their car, she tries to take pain into her own hands. Her readiness to leave her childhood behind at such a young age and numb herself from her family’s love shows how trauma impacts children, which is an important aspect of understanding intergenerational trauma in Indigenous communities. Inspired by director Tracey Deer’s lived experience, she said, “as Indigenous young people, this is definitely a watershed moment in our history.”
It’s important to keep in mind this is no isolated event, nor is it an event of the past. More recently, the years-long Wet’suwet’en standoff with the RCMP shows how little progress has been made for Indigenous people in Canada, as many land defenders were criminalized in both situations. The fight against Canada’s colonial forces is an ongoing battle.
Find out how to support the Land Back movement at landback.org.
Rustic Oracle (2019)
Where to watch: CBC Gem
Content warning: depictions of sexual violence.
Rustic Oracle is a story of a Mohawk girl who disappears, and her family and community’s investigation to find her. The movie grips your emotions with its uplifting depiction of communal support within the tight-knit village of Kanesatake and the love between mother and daughter.
Intimate cinematography never strays from eight-year-old Ivy’s (Lake Delisle) perspective. Confronted with her older sister’s disappearance, she’s shoved away from conversations with her mother and community members to protect her from troubling information. While you’d want to shield a child from these horrifying realities, it’s easy to tap into the confusion and loneliness of a kid surrounded by distressed adults who refuse to answer your questions. As Carmen Moore, who plays Ivy’s mother, explained in an interview, “To feel secure, you need answers, especially as a child.”
In Canada, far too many Indigenous families still don’t have answers: at least 4,000 Indigenous women and girls have gone missing in the last 30 years. Writer and director, Sonia Bonspille Boileau, spoke about how the film aims to contextualize this epidemic using storytelling to ignite empathy. “There are human beings who are living this, there are families grieving, there are mothers still in search of answers,” she said. The scale of this problem is made evident in a scene when Ivy finds that the ‘missing person’ poster she put up has been covered by posters of other missing people. While Ivy can only think of her sister, as an audience you’re left thinking about all the other Indigenous families who have gone through or currently endure a similar tragedy.
Support the Native Women’s Association of Canada, an “organization representing political voices of Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit, Transgender, and Gender-Diverse+ (WG2STGD+) People in Canada.” You can donate to them on their website.
Bones of Crows (2023)
Where to watch: in theatres across Canada
Content warning: depictions of sexual violence and suicide.
Bones of Crows is a feature-length film that spans a century; it weaves together how historical injustices like residential schools, World War II, and the Sixties Scoop have impacted survivors and their descendants. The film is anchored to the real life story of Cree Matriarch, Aline Spears (Grace Dove), from the trauma of being stolen from her parents and put through residential school to enlisting in the war to getting eloped and raising a family. The film hops through different time periods, so you connect the dots as you watch. Ending in 2008 when Aline is in her eighties, the film busts the myth that residential schools are just a dark chapter in the distant past. In fact, they haunt the lives of today’s Indigenous populations.
The film begins with an ominous sequence; a pile of bones and a screeching crow as settlers take over Indigenous territory in Turtle Crossing, Manitoba. Flash forward to the 1930’s, in residential school, Aline is praised for her piano skills, regarded as the “savage” who could become a “world-class pianist.” Her and her siblings endure abuse, which only gets worse after they try to escape. As an adult, Aline enlists in the army, translating Cree into morse code for a secret mission while her husband, Adam (Phillip Lewitski), fights abroad. As the couple later builds their family, Aline and Adam’s trauma follows them, leaving a mark on their children.
Loopholes in the Indian Act meant Indigenous veterans did not receive a veteran pension and lost their “Indian status” because “Indians absent from the reserve for four years were no longer Indians.” We see how this leaves Adam hopeless and unable to cope. Aline’s sister, meanwhile, winds up having her children taken from her during the Sixties Scoop, the systemic removal of Indigenous children from their parents, which continues to this day.
While Aline is able to pave the way for her children to succeed in life, they return their efforts in making sure Aline’s story is heard and the abuse she endured does not get buried in the past; that “old age and time” offers abusers “little grace.” The crows that loom throughout the film represent the unsettling colonial presence. When Alina finally confronts the Vatican on behalf of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we catch a glimpse of doves.
You can donate to residential school survivors at irsss.ca/donate. Find other ways to take action at https://uniteforchange.com/en/blog/indigenous/support-communities/.
