This film has achieved many international plaudits including nominations for for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and for Best International Feature Film. Yet, the film left me cold. This may be the lamest movie review ever, but what does all of this mean? I am bankrupt of ideas.
The film Belfast opens with a scene of pure joy. Young children playing on the street. Catholics and Protestant children playing with no thought of such distinctions. At least not to the children. After all they were “coming down to joy” as Van Morrison’s exuberant song plays in the background song. The only way you can tell the Catholics from the Protestants is by their names, and even that is a far from perfect tool.
It is was August 15, 1969 when this idyll was disrupted suddenly by a gang of belligerent Protest rioters walking together ominously in a group towards Buddy, the nine-year old protagonist. He is clearly mystified and has no idea what is going on. Suddenly torches are flung at houses by some of the mob. A rag is inserted into the gas tank of a vehicle, lit, and the car pushed down the street until it explodes in flames. Bricks are thrown thrown through some windows. Kids screaming in terrors having no idea what is going on. Buddy begs his mother to tell him what is happening. She does not have time to explain, even if she knew. obscene calls are heard demanding that Catholics get off the street. Buddy’s mum gasps : “Holy God.” It turns out peaceful Catholics were targeted by the mob. Why? What was going on?
The film is entirely shot in black and white. Perhaps because the issues seemed so black and white, when they were much more complex than that.
There are many snippets of films or news shows interspersed through the film. Some of those are in colour. They paint an alternate reality to the homes and the streets of Belfast.
Buddy’s family is Protestant, but Buddy’s mother and grandmother don’t understand what is happening. After all they get along well with their Catholic neighbours. Why is she supposed to hate them? They are “the same, except they kick with their left leg.” Why would Protestant neighbours attack them?
Buddy’s sister asks “how the hell are we supposed to know (who is Catholic and who is Protestant)? What a great question. and if you can’t tell the difference why would you hate them?
Buddy wants to know if that was “our side” or “their side on the street.” His father explains that “there is no our side or their side on their street. At least there never used to be.” Buddy says “I’ve had too much God for one day.” But his mother tells him, “your granny says you can never have too much God.” His father says, “I’ve got nothing against Catholics but it is a religion of fear.” The next scene is of the Protestant church with a hell fire and brim stone sermon guaranteed to put the fear of God into a 9-year old child with eyes wide open. Then he asks for money.
One of the Protestants in the gang says, “We’re looking to cleanse the community.” The he asks his father, “will it be cash or commitment?” Pa offers neither. He says, “We’re living in a civil war.” Billy Clanton the resentful leader of the Protestant gang says to Pa, “You think you’re better than the rest of us.” Pa replies, “The problem is you know you’re not.”
In the film scenes from the classic American western High Noon are shown. The hero, played by Gary Cooper, feels duty demands he stay to confront the gang of killers though his wife wants him to leave the town with her. The song rings out: “I must face the man who hates me.” Pa is in the same position. So is his family.
Buddy’s grandfather tries to help Buddy do better in math so he can sit with the girl he prizes. He suggests that he fudge the answers so that if he is wrong the alternative might be right and his teacher might not know which one he meant. Buddy asks if that is cheating and then says, “but there’s only one answer.” To that Grandfather offers a wise response: “If that were true people wouldn’t be blowing themselves up all the time.”
Buddy’s dad wants the family to move to London where he has a better job with a house. His mother wants to stay. “This is our home,” she says. After all, “we can’t all leave, there’d be nothing left but nutters.” She also tells Buddy, “Remember you’re Buddy from Belfast 15, where everybody looks after you.”
One lovely summer day, kids are playing with their fathers as Buddy’s mum and a friend are talking as they watch the play. Her friend says, “The bloody Irish are born for leaving. Otherwise, the rest of the world would have no pubs. It just needs half of us to stay so the other half can get sentimental about the ones that left. All the Irish need to survive is a Guinness, and a phone and the sheet music to ‘Danny Boy.’ ”
Buddy’s granny and grandfather share a wee drink at their window that nicely frames them. She says “they have to move on,’ presumably referring to her son and family. He replies with an Irish quote: ‘Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.” Who said that? She asks “what is it?” He replies, “Yeah well you don’t usually buy your wisdom with a walk in the park. Your heart has to explode.” “Mr. philosopher,” she says to him. “When did your heart ever explode?” “That time I saw you in those brown stockings,” he says. She replies, “Holy God, I remember that.” And he, “Aye, I remember that. They both chuckle. He says, “When you’re old people think your heart never skipped.” “Did yours ever skip?” “Aye. I danced a bloody jig every time you walked in the room. She says, “you were full of it then, you’re full of it now.” Neither has lost any love for the other, even though both are getting old. He is going to the hospital tomorrow. She insists she will walk him there and out again. But she is wrong.
Another day a riot broke out in Belfast and a mob broke into a store. Buddy joined in. He grabbed a box of detergent and the reason he gave his mother was, “it was biologic.” He thought that meant it was good and he should take it as others took other things. Why do protests so often spill over into looting? It happened in Minneapolis after people protested the death of George Floyd when a white police officer kneeled on his neck until he suffocated. His mother was wildly upset when she saw what her son had done. She dragged him back to the store, right into the danger where the riot was ongoing and tried to make him give it back, but was interrupted by Billy Clanton, the Protestant gang leader who said, “We don’t give things back.” You don’t give anything back when you are consumed by hate.
After Buddy’s Grandfather dies Buddy and his father share memories of him. Buddy says he used to help him with his math. He taught him how to cheat. Buddy says a lot of people came to see him at the funeral. Yeah, says, Pa, “he was very popular and he owed half of them money. He was a very deep thinker.” Full of blarney I guess.
Buddy asks his father. about his young girl friend “Pa do you think me and that wee girl have a future?” “Why the heck not,” his father asks. “Do you know she’s Catholic.” His father squats down low, looks Buddy in the eyes and quietly and calmly replies, “That we girl can be a practicing Hindu, or a Southern Baptist, or a vegetarian antichrist, but if she’s kind and she’s fair, and you two respect each other, she and her people are welcome in our house any day of the week.” Then he asks Buddy if this means they have to go to confession. Buddy says, “probably.” “Then we two are in trouble,” his father says.
I loved this film. I think you will too.
Even though I have been to Belfast, I think it was very helpful for me to hear Kenneth Branagh who wrote, directed and produced the film Belfast explain the background to the film when interviewed on the Bill Maher show. Instead of shot from the film I include some of my own photos of Belfast taken in 2009 when Christiane and I made a wonderful trip to the wonder country of Ireland.
This photo is one of many I took of murals in Belfast that celebrate heroes of the Troubles. This one felt threatening. The rile held by masked man “followed” us by a the trick of an optical illusion.
The film Belfast has been nominated for Best Picture and it is a sad love story about the love of a Kenneth Branagh for his hometown which he had to leave a 9 year old boy. That was the same age as Buddy in the film. Just like the family in the film, his family lived on a street in Belfast. His family was Protestant but there were many Catholics as well on the street.
In southern Ireland the Catholics are in a majority, but in Northern Ireland which was part of the United Kingdom the Catholics were in the minority at about 40% of the population. Yet they got along well, at least until they didn’t.
This writing on the wall expresses the spirit of Branagh’s family.
Maher asked Branagh to explain the history of what happened in Belfast during the troubles. The troubles began in 1968 because the Catholics were dissatisfied that they were not getting the same economic and social benefits as the Protestants in Northern Ireland. It was not really a religious dispute, but religion helped to fan the flames of hate as so often happens. The Protestants were dominant in the north, and the Catholics there thought they were not getting a fair shake. From the mid-1960s there was a civil rights movement in Ireland as there was in the United States and Canada. People started to speak up for their rights and that can lead to trouble, or in this case, to the Troubles.
The film opens up on August 15, 1969 when the grievances suddenly spilled out into street violence. Until then the Protestant majority in the north got along well with the Catholic minority. They had the same kinds of jobs and the same kinds of homes. But in one fell swoop a Protestant mob came down the street where Buddy, the 9-year old protagonist in the film was playing with his friends, both Catholics and Protestants. This is exactly what Branagh experienced as a young boy in Belfast at that time. The story is also the story of his life in fictional form. The Protestants marked the houses of the Catholics with stones, and broke the windows on their houses. The message was clear, “We know where you live. It’s time for you to get out.” As Billy Clanton one of the leaders of the Protestant gang I the film said, “We want to cleanse the city.” Ominious words in the 20th century.
1969 in the US was the summer of love, but in Belfast it was the summer of hate. There was the greatest displacement of people in Europe since the second World War, up to that time. Thousands of Catholics were forced to leave and a dark period in Ireland began. It lasted for 30 years.
Branagh’s family was Protestant but they did not join in the violence against the Catholics. They were opposed to violence against their friends with whom they got along. Some of the Protestants did not like that. The Protestant leaders came to visit Branagh’s father and told him, “You’re either with us or against us. There is no middle ground.” Again these are ominous words, later adopted by George W. Bush after 9/11. Branagh’s father tried to stand up against the mob, but that was hard. As Branagh said,
“It was a really difficult thing to do to disagree fundamentally with someone, but not to translate that into hating them. Or rejecting them. But the even more difficult thing of actually trying to understand them. That was the example he set.”
That is difficult everywhere. It is difficult in the United States and it is difficult in the bible belt of southern Manitoba. Bill Maher claimed that this is what he tries to show on his television show. He always wants to show that he thinks for himself, not a tribe. “Im not with either tribe,” Maher said. His father said, “I’m not going to join you to hate the Catholics for reasons I don’t share. A 9-year old must be taught that.”
The walls, still standing in 2009, had to be built very high to stop people from throwing rocks and more dangerous things over it.
As Branagh said, a 9-year old can be simple and open in the stand off, but people forget that the effects may last for decades when violence rears its ugly head. The situation can be quickly polarized with ordinary people caught in the maw. Branagh said, when he grew up it was a beautiful day in the neighbourhood everyday. He did not understand why one day a man came and told him that he and his friend Paddy, who was a Catholic, could no longer play together. Why? He said it was buried in his mind for 50 years. That is why he wrote the story of the film.
3,700 people died in Ireland during the Troubles. Yet the world over people have showed that tribal pressure can be overcome by talking to each other no matter how hard it is. The same things happens everywhere. It happens in Iran, Palestine, Ukraine, Congo, and southern Manitoba. Every where there is a trouble spot. The good stuff of family, laughter, music, dancing, and partying can help. Insisting that we are always right and they are always wrong does not help. Religions though encourage such attitudes, at least when they are least religious.
This is the way the house still looked in 2009. First a barrier on top of the wall, and then supplemented by screen over the porch. Belfast was a hard place to live.
Belfast really is a lot like so many places around the world. From Ireland to Winkler, from Croatia to Rwanda. From Iran to the Middle East. Neighbours fighting neighbours. Neighbours hating neighbours. For no good reason. It just happens when we gather in tribes and it becomes us against them. It can be in the name of religion, or politics or creed whenever we try hard not to understand each other. And troubles can arise as quickly as prairie fire.
All of this is background for the film Belfast I want to talk about next.
This film is essentially a murder mystery, though not of the conventional garden variety kind. This is not Agatha Christie. There is more than one mystery here including a spiritual mystery encapsulated by the film’s title. The title to the film comes from Psalm 22: “Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.”
This is a film that portrays events that set in Montana in 1925 at a wealthy ranch owned by two brothers Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Jesse Plemons). During a cattle drive the cowboys meet the owner of a saloon Rose Gordon (Kristen Dunst). Phil the less gentlemanly of the two brothers feels attracted to her while his brother Phil is repelled by her. From there on the calves butt heads as symbolized by an image early on in the film. Phil believes Rose is after George’s money. Rose has son Peter, (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is a delicate young boy unaccustomed to the rough ways of the west. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion. It has received a lot of favourable attention such as 12 Academy award nomination nominations including Best Picture, Best Director and Best actor for Cumberbatch, best supporting actor for both Plemons and Smit-McPhee and Best supporting actor Dunst who is also the spouse of Plemons. No film has more nominations this year.
While the cinematography is stunning, not every one was impressed that it was shot mainly in New Zealand standing in for Montana. At one time Phil is standing looking up into the mountains and the cowboys wonder what he sees. His reply is curt: “If you can’t see it; it ain’t there.”
Early in the film, Pete in narration, says “when my father passed, what sort of man would I be if I did not help my mother?” And that is a significant theme in the film. Masculinity, both toxic and otherwise is important in the film.
Peter is first seen making flowers out of paper for the dinner table in the restaurant, when the staff are rudely dismissed by Phil. “I wonder what little lady made these,” he asks while looking directly at Pete. Phil lights the paper and throws it into a glass of water, as if beauty cannot possibly be masculine. It is only fit to be discarded. Who needs flowers? Meanwhile the men—the real men—cavort with whores. As a flower child myself, I dissent from the suggestion that flowers are not masculine. Phil writes to his parents warning them that George is courting a “suicide widow.” But George is in awe of Rose. And in time they marry.
George is much gentler and civilized than his rougher brother. He is a true gentleman. Interestingly George and Phil share a bed in the hotel. But all is chaste.
Though Phil is rougher than George he has his artistic side too. He plays the banjo while Rose is playing the piano and drowns her out. Later Phil also made a beautiful lasso for Peter who becomes his protege. He also was Phi Beta Kappa in college while studying the classics at an eastern university. The Governor asks George, “ Does he swear at the cattle in Latin?” He calls the ranch “an island of civilization,” but says Phil’s dirty clothes don’t bother him. “He’s a ranchman. That’s honest dirt.”
Peter may not be as innocent as he seems, for we learn from the maid that he killed a rabbit to practice surgery. Yet Peter and Phil, so apparently different, are also attracted to each other. Phil becomes his mentor. Peter’s father hung himself and Peter says his father told him he wasn’t kind enough and that he was too strong. Phil finds that hard to believe.
There is a mysterious death that is central to the story. And it is mysterious.
There are many interesting aspects of this film, Nightmare Alley, but one of them really grabbed me.
Years ago, I read a wonderful book by Robertson Davies, one of Canada’s finest writers at the time. The book is Fifth Business. Frankly, I read it so long ago I don’t remember much about it. Yet that book had one very disturbing scene at the end that has haunted me ever since. It really was a nightmare scene involving a geek. I had never heard of geeks before, and I am not sure I heard of them again until recently when I watched the film called Nightmare Alley.
A character in Davies’ book described a geek this way:
“Geek…That is what carnival people call them. They are not an advertised attraction, but word that a geek is in a back tent is passed around quietly, and money is taken without any sale of tickets. Otherwise the Humane Societies make themselves a nuisance. The geek is represented as somebody who simply has to have raw flesh, and especially blood. After the spieler has lectured terrifyingly on the psychology and physiology of the geek, the geek is given a live chicken: he growls and rolls his eyes, then he gnaws through its neck until the head is off, and he drinks the spouting blood. Not a nice life, and very hard on the teeth, but if it is the only way to keep yourself in morphia you’d rather geek than have the horrors. The rubes loved it; Willard (the geek) was something even the most disgusting brute could despise…people like to be in awe of something.”
After the geek bites off the head of the chicken he swallows it. I keep thinking what sort of people like this? Now I don’t want to scare anyone off. You don’t see this on the screen, but it is suggested. And the scene is brief. That is bad enough.
The film is a film is based on a 1946 novel of the same name written by William Lindsay Gresham. An earlier film version was made in 1947. The film was directed by Guillermo del Toro and stars Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchette, Willem Dafoe , Rooney Mara, and Ron Perlman and other outstanding actors.
In the film the geek escapes and his “owner” hunts him down in the dark alleys of the carnival. When he is caught, he keeps saying, “I’m not like this.” A sign near by says, “Take a look at yourself sinner.” The viewers really are looking at themselves and they probably are sinners. The “owner” says, “Folks will pay good money just to make themselves feel better.” To the public he asks, “Behold one of the wonders of the universe. Is he man or beast?” That is a question one should ask of the patrons instead.
The men are able to exploit the geek by taking advantage of his addiction to drugs or alcohol. The geek wants them so bad he will geek to get them. Can you imagine how desperate a person must be to do that?
Stan, is played by Bradley Cooper, a charming but overly ambitious carnival worker. He is shady mentalist. He is successful because he understands “People are desperate to tell you who they are. Desperate to be seen.” He uses that knowledge to lead people astray. He seduces Molly by promising her, “I’ll give you the world and everything in. it.” How can she fall for that?
The problem for someone like Stan is that he must be careful not to believe his own lies. That becomes dangerous. Stan forgets what Lilith knows, that he is “ a man who thinks he is high above the common man,” but actually is “nothing but an Okie with straight teeth.” He finds out how high he is.
Like the geek, he is a “poor soul.”
This is a Spanish film that Canadians in particular should find resonating. The background to the story is the discovery of long hidden graves that suggest Spain’s fascist past has not disappeared. It is not even past, as William Faulkner might say. And as Canada is learning, perhaps against its will, a horrific past cannot be ignored, it must be faced. Canada and Spain find themselves in similar circumstances for uncomfortably similar reasons.
The background of the film is the the ugly fact of hidden graves, but the foreground is deeply sensual and beautiful. The director Pedro Almodóvar uses that background to deliver a film about 2 similar (or parallel if you prefer) mothers. As the Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw put it, “Here we have convergent mothers; intersecting mothers whose lives come together with a spark that ignites this moving melodrama, which audaciously draws a line between love, sex, the passionate courage of single mothers, the meaning of Lorca’s Doña Rositat the Spinster and the unhealed wound of Spain’s fascist past.”
In this film two single mothers—one young and the other about twice as old— meet and clash with electric results. Their two stories illuminate each other as they also hide the truth. Ultimately, that is what the film is about. It is important to uncover the truth disaster can follow a hidden truth that will not stay hidden and the redemption that is possible if it is revealed with honesty.
Penélope Cruz plays the part of Janis the older mother a glamorous photographer. The younger mother, Ana is played by Milena Smit a teenager with a troubled family past. Arturo ((Israel Elejalde), is anthropologist who works with a historical unit that was formed under Spain’s memory law that traces people killed by supporter of the fascist leader Fanco during the civil war. Janis believes her grandfather was one of the victims and beseeches Arturo to help her discover the truth. While they search for truth, they are less than honest with each other. And that makes all the difference.
The scenes are saturated with beauty. The interior scenes and clothes the women wear are transfused with spectacular colour, the food looks just as sensational, the art on the walls is transfixing. I got the feeling that the colors and foods were characters in the film. Every colour feels as choreographed as classical ballet. The sensual reality behind the abstract search for truth. The colours tell their own parallel story.
In the end the townspeople, carrying photos of their ancestors, to honour their dead, lie in the graves as the dead must have done. Like our indigenous Canadians they want to honour the dead.
The film is summed up, in a quotation from Eduardo Galeano at the end:
“However much they crush it,
However much they falsify it,
Human history refuses to stay silent.”
We would do well to acknowledge that and give up trying to deny it or hide it.
If you want to know the truth, I like nearly every movie I see. But this was not one of them.
Dune: Part One is an American epic science fiction film. Let me say at the outset that neither of these genres of film are my favourites. The original Dune based on a 1965 novel by Frank Herbert has a large cult following. Frankly, the film left me cold. No more accurately it left me with feeling of dry and infertile sand. A dune in other words.
It was directed by famous Canadian director Denis Villeneuve and has a stellar cast including Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Zendaya (briefly in Part 1) Jason Momoa and Javier Bardem.
I know that this genre of films is extremely popular. Often it seems like the only type of film that studios continue to make. I also know that at different times in my life I have been addicted to movie genres no more believable than this one, including cowboy films, detective films, or the modern action film in which some rebellious male knights relentlessly challenges some bad dudes and kills them. All of those genres now bore me even though they earn mountains of money at the box office. This one was no exception. I apologize if you like them. That does no make me smarter, or more astute. It just means I have had enough. I need something different. Dune was not it. I could not wait for it to end.
This is an important film. And a joyful film. Everyone should see it. We can learn a lot from watching it. In particular it helps us to stand in the shoes of someone different and see life from a new vantage point. What can be more important than that?
The story revolves around a loving and fighting family where 3 people are deaf and 1 is hearing. Each character is forced to confront the point of view of at least one other person. Isn’t that films are all about? That is what I loved about this film. That and it made me feel good.
In the film, Ruby, (Emilia Jones) the only hearing person in a close knit family of 4 decides to join a school choir mainly to meet a good looking young guy. Her mother Jackie (Marlee Matlin) is confused. Why would she do that? She asks her daughter, “If I was blind, would you like to paint?” It is a joke, but it raises a crucial point. The mother can’t understand why her hearing daughter doesn’t want to be just like them. Jackie also said that when her daughter was born she hoped she would be deaf so she would be just like her mom. I was shocked by that comment. Yet, film made it clear that deaf people don’t see themselves as defective or handicapped. They think they are lucky. There are many things hearing people can’t do that they can do. She wants the best for her daughter, and to her, that is being deaf.
Ruby on the other hand learns that she loves music and is pretty good at it. Her music teacher challenges her to overcome her fears of performing. He asks her how music makes her feel. She can’t find the words. That is exactly what deaf people do; they can’t find the words either. Eventually, Ruby signs her reply that for her American sign language is the language of feelings and expressions. That is one thing hearing people don’t get. I also think she means that this is also true for music.
The deaf members of the family don’t catch on that Ruby likes being their interpreter, but she wants more than that. She also wants a relationship with a young boy and does not want to give up everything for her family. Her family must learn that. Only her brother understands. In fact, he resents the fact that Ruby is turned to whenever family members need to communicate with the outside world. He wants to do that, even though is he is deaf.
I read that the producers of Coda wanted to use hearing people for the role of deaf people. Matlin was upset at that. She insisted that deaf characters must be played by deaf actors. As Matlin said,
“Enough is enough. Deaf is not a costume. It’s not authentic and insults the community that you’re portraying. Because we exist, we deaf actors. We do a much better job of portraying characters, telling stories that involve deaf characters, because we lived it. We know it.”
When she won an academy award for her first role in the film Children of a Lesser God a movie critic said she won the award out of pity. He asked how was it acting for her to play a role of a deaf girl? To this Matlin responded, how then was it acting for a hearing girl to play a hearing girl? Sometimes hearing people just are not able to stand in the shoes of a deaf person. That is a failure of imagination. And it works both ways.
The beauty of Coda is that we do experience what it means to be deaf. I loved the scene in which the family went to a concert where Ruby was playing. At first the deaf people did not get it either. They too had a failure of imagination. But they watched the faces of the audience and they knew what their hearing child/sibling was doing just by watching. They could see she was special. Just like they were special.
Deaf is not a costume; neither is hearing. Neither the deaf nor the hearing are children of a lesser God.
It’s time to make a confession. I have been a James Bond fan forever. Ever since I was a young lad ordering books from the University of Manitoba Extension Library and one day received a novel by Ian Fleming called Dr. No as a substitute for a book I had ordered, I was hooked. The Library sent books for free from the University to us poor urchins in the cultural hinterland in places like Steinbach without a library. If the book one ordered was not available they sent something they thought the reader might like instead. I had never heard of James Bond or Ian Fleming. He was not yet a world wide phenomenon. But the library sent me Dr. No.
I have no idea what book I ordered but I received Dr. No and I was transported into young boys Fantasy land. I found a spy who was licenced to kill. I still remember the opening scene. 3 blind black men in Jamaica walking in line and opening fire on an unsuspecting hapless victim. They were not blind at all. They were assassins. It seems absurd now. It was absurd, but it was unlike anything I had ever read before. This was exciting stuff!
Amazingly, perhaps, I have been a fan ever since. When they started making movies out of the Bond books, I loved them too. Guns, girls, and mayhem. What’s not to like.
Of course, the films make no sense. They aren’t meant to make sense. The books didn’t either. Except to young boys and girls living a fantastic dream. Of course, even some heavy intellectuals like Bond. Peter Bradshaw the long-time Guardian film critic, said movie was “ridiculously watchable.” No matter how absurd it is, my love of Bond endures. Forget about logic.
As a result, it comes as no surprised that I liked the latest Bond film, “No Time to Die.” They are no longer based on books. They ran out of books decades ago. No matter. I have been a fan of those too. I have come to appreciate the films ever more since Danial Craig took over the role of Bond. Apparently, this is Danial Criag’s last film as Bond. What a pity.
What happens next? Who knows?
The film Kimmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is film currently showing at Cinematheque and it should be widely viewed. It was produced by filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers. It tells an important story. It is a story about life on an Indian Reserve in southern Alberta. I drove by a couple of years ago on my way to Waterton Lakes National Park. (That also should be widely viewed).
The film tells the story of how that community has been ravaged by substance abuse and addictions and attempts to deal with that ugly fact by a new approach. Instead of abstinence they are tying a new approach labeled as ‘Harm reduction.’ That just means they abandon techniques that have failed over and over again and are trying something new. It may be uncomfortable but can it possibly be worse than the robust failures of the old approach?
The significance of this film is not limited to Indian reserves; this issue is relevant around Canada. It affects poor people, the middle class and the rich. It is not the approach of Nancy Regan. Not Just ‘say No’. It would be nice if serous social problems could be solved by reciting a simple formula.
The substances include fentanyl, meth, Carfentanil or carfentanyl, heroin, and solvents. Interestingly carfentanyl has a quantitative potency approximately 10,000 times that of morphine and 100 times that of fentanyl. It seems like every couple of years something is invented that is worse than the drug of existing drug choice. No wonder we have such problems.
I know some of my friends were very depressed by what they saw. Who wouldn’t be? Yet I would say things were not entirely hopeless. Grim but not hopeless. There was a hero in this story, physician Esther Tailfeathers, mother of the filmmaker, heroically I would say, without judgment is tackling the problems one person at a time. She tolerates the fact that her patients continue taking their drugs of choice. She has no magic. But she has quite diligence, energy, and most of all, empathy. She works daily on the front lines and offers help to addicts to kick their habits and prescribes suboxone as a substitute. Some criticize this approach by saying it merely substitutes one drug for another. Perhaps, but we have seen current techniques fail. I say, can this new approach be worse?
The harm reduction approach includes in some cases safe injection sites. Manitoba’s Department of Health when it was led by Steinbach’s own Kelvin Goertzen considered this new approach and rejected it. Alberta under the leadership of NDP premier Rachel Notely tried the new approach but it was rejected by the current United Conservative government led by Jason Kenney.
What I liked about the film was that by closely interviewing actual participants caught up in the epidemic of drug addictions on that reserve, I felt like I was there listening to the people. It was not an easy watch. How could it be? But I felt like perhaps I could tell how they felt. Isn’t that what empathy is all about? Isn’t that important? Should we not consider their point of view?