Childhood trauma leading to adult ostracism. The events in our young life and the ways in which we still pay for the consequences, mistake or not. A young native girl coming back to her native community and shaking up the system. Protesting the ways in which the system is run, and the contested fury that comes from a childhood mistake & the mom who has also reaped the consequences. Two opposing ideals but really about the desire to revive a community beset by tragedy, the native community being beset by this tragedy and a native american girl who dare tries to bring back some sort of life. The beauty in which she sees her own community & sees what she needs to do. Performances are fantastic, the main girl brings such depths of sadness in her facial cues & expressions, we get each moment of realization and heartbreak without her having to say a word. A community of just great actors feeling entirely believable, even the little pranksters that prank everyone feel so indebted to real life that it doesn't even come out as phony or forced. The white woman in this community is beautiful played, a entire history of sadness & tragedy on her face & in her body language perfectly shown. A person seemingly hurt & destroyed by her own mental state. Camerawork feels so wonderfully understated, using the sense of lighting patterns that feels so atmospheric yet never feels too dark like a lot of bigger movies tend to feel. The burning house is wonderfully used as a visual motif but is just impeccably shot, not showing too much each time but allowing enough visual information to feel the sense of heartbreak & anguish. Another classic case of a great sense of character writing & never telling us what we already know, a filmmaker who trusts her audience & their capacity to understand the film. The ways in which not just the white woman character changes & the main lead changes is so perfectly done. But my favorite arc that is so beautifully done that manages to never feel schmaltzy is the husband to the white woman's character, he's so quiet & seemingly angered towards the lead but comes to see her perspective & grows out of his cynicism to finally help revive the community & reach deep down into her inner native american past & heritage. A movie about finally realizing who you are & reviving loved ones who have seemingly died while still living. The living dead, shocking them back to life with embracing of your own heritage & finally putting some motivation and spark into the stasis from which they buried themselves into. Not giving up, and finally starting to live again. Also fantastic example of a film managing to make a community and a town a seemingly full-fledged character in and of itself, your not only saving people you are saving something else entirely. And a lead character with trauma, growing from that trauma and finally making peace with the ones you hurt. Alcohol also being a pathway to abuse, neglect, death, and corruption. We let it be free & legal in our society & watch it tear us apart. A community being torn apart by a substance that wouldn't be legalized if it was newly released today. Also the irony but eventual change as she realizes she's being ostracized for a past mistake yet bootlegging crimes are treated with normality. Indie cinema remains as some of the most emotionally felt, heartbreaking, and beautiful cinema nowadays.
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