Review by Beatrice On 25-Nov-2023
Men come and go like the waves of the sea. Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot escape the common fate.
Quebec, June 26, 1977
Five Atitakamekw indigenous natives are found dead in a van submerged in a river.
Only two white men who were with them managed to save themselves by freeing themselves and exiting the vehicle.
The Atikamekw community of Manawan is a First Nations reserve on the southwestern shores of Lake Metabeskega in the Lanaudiere region of Quebec, Canada.
On Julianna's body, there are evident signs of bruises between her legs and cuts on her stomach, which her mother points out when identifying her daughter's body, noting that the body is neither bluish nor swollen like those found in the water.
The child Antoinette had been thrown from the van onto the roadside, away from her mother.
Marcel seems to have gone mad, the music blares dissonantly while the percussion echoes the restless violent fate of the natives.
Long silences, nature, children, darkness, dismay.
No reaction from the police, total indifference, even contempt in the delivery of documents: no investigation is planned, it would be considered an accident...
Not even in the nearest town does anyone talk about it, while among the native indigenous children, the presence of death is felt.
Philippe is devastated, he has lost his wife, he has four children and cannot come to terms with it; he continually leaves home with his horse, unable to survive, despite showing no violence except towards himself.
The wake is dignified and poignant: even the electric guitar is played, the sacred fire will burn for three days and the sacrifice of animals will accompany the funeral rite.
The Petiquay family is aware that no one will investigate; no inquiry is planned for the Indians.
The burial will take place with the whole community, the graves, the sand, the wooden crosses with the names painted on them: songs and moments of great silence.
Angèle is left alone because her mother is dead and her father is absent.
Among the bodies found in the back of the van, some had their underwear lowered with cuts and bruises.
At sunset, nature welcomes the bath in the waters of death of Angèle and Mr. Quitich's son, driven mad by grief.
The medical examiner will confirm the criminal responsibility of the white driver, but the documents will be unavailable, and no charges will be brought against the witnesses present during the incident.
A film that serves as an intimate counterpoint to Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon.
A cinema testimony of a massacre hidden and unrecognized for years that reclaims its voice: an anthropological snapshot where the headless cruelty of white supremacy over other ethnicities generously distributes its diktat.
It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story.
25-Nov-2023 by Beatrice