(CANADA)
Splash Magazines [Shelton WA]
December 14, 2024
By Bob Hershon
In 2021, the discovery of unmarked graves at a Catholic-run Indian residential school in Canada unearthed long-suppressed truths about the forced separation, assimilation, and abuse inflicted on Indigenous children in these institutions. The revelation ignited national reckoning with a system designed to erase Indigenous cultures. This practice dates from 1831 when the first Canadian Indian residential school was opened, a practice that was even more commonplace in the United States where we opened over 400 residential schools.
Sugarcane, co-directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, is at once an epic drama and a multi-award winning documentary. In the film we see victims uncovering abuse and recovering from its trauma, drawing strength from the Williams Lake First Nation’s heritage through ceremony, the sharing of stories, community and culture. Now streaming on Hulu, nowhere in this film is the journey from a dark past to a brighter future more in evidence than in the family story of Julian Brave NoiseCat, the film’s director, who unexpectedly becomes a core part of the narrative; although at first with some reluctance. “I didn’t set out to make a documentary about myself and my family when Emily reached out to me to collaborate. My family, like many other Indigenous families, has an intimate and painful connection to the residential schools,” Julian said.”We don’t talk about it.”
Julian’s co-worker at The Huffington Post, Emily discovered the Williams Lake First Nation in British Columbia had begun investigating the St. Joseph’s Mission Indian residential school. She contacted Chief Willie Sellars, he noted the timing was perfect, as they had just decided to document their search. When Emily told Julian it was the St. Joseph’s School Julian said, “That’s crazy,” I said. “My family was sent there and it is where my father was born… and abandoned. “She chose to pursue the investigation before we could talk or I had committed to the project. Later, I was pulled into the narrative by my aunt, Charlene Belleau, who brought me to the barns in the first week of filming and performed a ceremony that you see in the film.
It is the barn scene the aging but indefatigable Charlene climbs a rickety ladder with Julian into a barn where she and other children have inscribed their numbers into the barn walls, much like prisoners with no names. Charlene, overcome by emotion tearfully describes the punishment and abuse that took place there. And then in a ceremony thanks Julian for “bearing witness to a time in history where our people are going to stand up and you’re going to make sure that the people are held accountable for everything they’ve done to us.” To her it is more than a movie. Teaming with another investigator in the movie Whitney Spearing, Charlene employs everything from archival newspapers, cassettes to the most advanced handheld ground penetrating radar to uncover the perpetrator’s victims and evidence of their abuse.
We see flashbacks of Charlene who has been fighting this battle for years to help her community heal and for her efforts was awarded Canada’s Meritorious Service Cross. In one scene the tireless Charlene asks an elderly group of the school’s survivors if they remember the names of the priests at the school. They go around the room until one woman, Rosalin Sam, choking on emotion names Price, the priest who abused her. Despite telling her family, school officials and even the RCMP. “Nobody would believe me. I got drunk. I was an alcoholic after that.” She is finally granted the response she deserves as the gathered survivors are moved to tears upon hearing her story.
The uncovering of the abuse prompts a visit to the reservation by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. His timing for an apology along with a call to engage with the tribe’s history is called into question as it coincides with the late Chief Rick Gilbert’s visit to the Vatican. A progeny of an abused Indian mother, it is Rick Gilbert, a keeper of the catholic faith, who seeks an apology from the Vatican and Pope himself. Despite his failing health he courageously makes the long journey and we see the Pope issue an apology for the behavior of the priests at the residential school.
Sugarcane toward the end does offer a surprise, the building of a bond between Julian and his father Archie Noisecat. But I warn you it is hard won. Emily Kassie explains, “It was really remarkable to watch this father and son be so vulnerable with each other and build back a relationship; that had been broken intergenerationally because of these schools. To watch them reckon with that in real time was, for me, incredibly inspiring.” This unwinding of the tangled relationship between Julian and his father Ed Archie Noisecat typifies how abuse can stifle the love from mother to son and from son to grandson. We discover Ed Archie Noisecat is the sole survivor of the incinerator at St. Josephs. His mother’s shame from the abuse from the priest and the resulting pregnancy is finally voiced in the presence of father and son. And in the end we do see them bond and start upon the road to a happier and better relationship.
Julian pointed out that although the camera is a powerful tool, it has historically been used in cinema, especially documentaries, to often portray Indigenous peoples in problematic ways. “There’s another possibility that the camera can empower, can tell people that they have agency, that their stories matter,” Julian explained. “And, the linchpin in that is, is not the camera itself, it’s who’s behind the camera. I think that obviously, having an indigenous person from this community impacted by this story was helpful. But I didn’t shoot the film and there were entire scenes of the film that I wasn’t present for. That has to do with the relationship of Em (Emily Kassie) and our director of photography, Christopher LaMarca.
There should be an award for those who exposed their heart and soul to the camera in Sugarcane. Perhaps their award is a chance to heal and deliver a powerful message that will prevent this kind of atrocity from ever happening again.