Monday's movies

I saw two movies on Monday: Our People Will Be Healed and Of Sheep and Men.

Our People Will Be Healed is made by Alanis Obomsawin, who has made dozens of films and is now in her 80s. It looks at the school, mainly, in the northern Manitoba Native community of Norway House. The school is big, new, well-funded and apparently well-run. The kids learn science, and reading, and Native Studies, and fiddling, and all the things.

The scenery was beautiful and the movie was very positive. It was a bit disconcerting, though, that they talked to cheery young men on their way to university who said they don't do drugs or drink, but didn't talk about the dropouts who maybe do. With less than half of the kids who start high school finishing, there is clearly another side of the story that we are not getting. There were references in passing to gangs, but we weren't shown anything about that, either. And the thing that really bugged me: it was never winter there in that northern Manitoba town. I can see what she wanted to do, and that people in the town and the school are trying hard, but it's difficult to see how 60 kids out of 200 graduating is a triumph, without more background.

I had another movie right after that at a different theatre, so I thought I didn't have time to stay for the Q&A. I might have learned some of this history there. As it turned out, an Algerian film about sheep didn't have a huge lineup and I could have walked in 5 minutes before it started. Ah well, live and learn.

Of Sheep and Men just looked interesting and was at a convenient place and time. I was a bit surprised when I found out how much the film was about sheep fighting! Who even knew? Along with the head-banging of sheep, there is buying and selling. Everyone around wants a ram to sacrifice for Eid al-Adha (the Feast of the Sacrifice) so we get to see a huge market, a field full of sheep and men. 

It was just the sort of movie I wanted to see this year: a modest film, subtitled, unexpected, not my usual (though it is a documentary, and might just come back to our cinema), The director said he was taking it back to Algeria to show next week and I'd be interested to see how it goes there.

Today, two more! And fiction, for a change.