BY Linda Winsh-Bolard
Chris Eyre teamed with the Linn family for a new project set at Pine Ridge. The project grew out of a question: Why are there so few contemporary roles for Native Americans?
And here comes a contemporary suspense with Native Americans.
A successful prosecutor in Denver, Shayla Stonefeather, is called back to the reservation right after she had send to prison, for murder, Robbie Whiteshirt, a fellow Lakota tribesman. Shayla’s Father is very ill, incapable of speech, and her Mother Rebecca brought him home from the hospital to enjoy his birthday and to die at home.
Not an easy choice, and just one of many that confront Shayla’s changed perception of the world. The world of her Mother, the beliefs of her people, the traditions that seem distant to Shayla’s established existence in a big city, where she is engaged to Jonathan, a white colleague with a bid for Senate.
Home is a beautiful landscape, family ranch, buffalo, a lot of history, lack of understanding and powerful emotional tuck. Her brother Nathaniel disappeared two years ago and her Mother wants Shayla to find him before her Father dies. Her car is spray-painted, and an intruder seems to have invaded the house the same evening. Shayla believes she had shot him, but no trace of any intrusion, or blood can be found. Although she originally rejects the idea of a spirit in the house, faced with unexplained sounds and sights, she decides to find out what message they might carry.
As if all that was not enough, Robbie, who claimed all along his innocence, is shot while trying to escape prison transport. His brother Frank lives on the reservation and confronts Shayla; only the presence of Tom Grey Horse, a rez cop, and a former boyfriend, prevents ugly consequences. Yet Shayla stays, because she wants to know, to understand and to re-connect.
There are twists changing your expectations, and that is nice. The main character is a Native woman, and her troubles are not related to lack of love. It is so nice to actually have a film with a woman, and about women, in their own rights, we see precious few of these.
It is to the filmmakers’ credit that the film never descends into a familiar cliché of a chick film.
Tonantzin Carmelo (Into the West) portrays Shayla as a strong, opinionated woman torn between living with her people and working for them, and having a career within the dominating culture. A struggle many know only too well. No easy way out is presented in the film.
Carla Rae-Holland (Stepford Wives) is Shayla’s Mother Rebecca and an excellent match; strong, gentle and decisive, she helps to create a credible family background while staying her own independent person through the film. We can only hope to see her often.
The men don’t fare quite that well. Michael Spears (Into the West) is the traditional cop, and left behind boyfriend Tom, a role he plays well, but he is never as strong as the women because he never doubts, and that makes him less complex and less believable.
Cory Brusseau is Jonathan, the Denver boyfriend, shallow, ambitious and, at the end, a loser, no match for Shayla or Rebecca. That makes the presence of her father, Sam, Charlie White Buffalo, imprisoned by his disease, stronger, but of course it is a silent and limited part.
The film was shot on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation and on the 777 Buffalo Ranch, South Dakota, in about three weeks. Although Wounded Knee is shown as having strong influence on the people, no filming was done on the grounds. Chief Dave Bald Eagle and Charlie White Buffalo were language advisors, with Charlie White Buffalo also serving with Larry Pourier as cultural advisors.
Tonantzin Carmelo learned her lines and was told that she “sounded pretty good”, by both. Carmelo is Tongva on her Mother’s side.
The film was made on shoestring budget, and is truly family production with members of the Linn family serving as crew ( they have a video company and are used to it). Chris Eyre was more than a producer, coming up with some innovative ways of scene creating, such as using a huge tractor instead of crane to lift the light (Chris had never driven a tractor before but the budget did not stretch to cranes). Dennis Linn built the breakaway wall and also drove through it wearing a football helmet. The wolfs at the end cooperated( the first day of shooting they simply refused to move),only there is more than one playing the same part. The buffalo herd is the same as it was in Dances with Wolves, nice to see there is a future for them.
All at all not your typical “Indian” movie, not perfect but a good change.
Directed by Michael Linn, Produced by Chris Eyre and Carolyn Linn, Stars: Tonantzin Carmelo, Michael Spears, Carla Rae Holland, Cory Brusseau, Cahrlie White Buffalo, Russel Chewey.
