>>REVIEW
Directed by Aaron James
Independent, 2006
Made entirely on location in northern Alberta, filmmaker Aaron James Sorenson’s Hank Williams First Nation is revelatory. This is not just a good movie "for a Canadian film," or a good movie "for a first-time Alberta filmmaker." A quiet and luminous tale of a family, a road trip, and what it’s to be the ones who stay home, the film is a revelation.
Unhurried and lyrical, the movie’s haunting appeal relies not just on the note-perfect performances of the cast, from veteran Canadian actor Gordon Tootoosis to relative unknowns Stacy DaSilva and Bernard Starlight, but on the hypnotically beautiful cinematography, which captures the still, frozen beauty of northern Canada in winter without excess or exaggeration.
When ancient and slightly eccentric Uncle Martin (Jimmy Herman) decides to make a pilgrimage to the Nashville grave of his longtime hero Hank Williams Sr., family patriarch Adelard Fox (Tootoosis) convinces his grandson Jake (Colin VanLoon) to accompany Uncle Martin and watch out for him. In exchange for being taken out of school, Jake keeps a journal of the trip in the form of letters sent home to various members of the community. The unexpected and poignant turns of the road trip are interspersed with the quiet drama of the lives of those back home in their small northern Athabasca community.
Leavened with the pricelessly funny commentary of the only radio station’s DJ, The Old Man on the Mountain (Sammy Simon), the film moves easily between small-town humour and tragedy. Without moralizing or indeed even commenting on the lives and choices of the individuals in the film, Hank Williams First Nation manages to be one of the most human, least stereotyped portrayals of both rural and First Nations life ever made. There is not a single caricature, not a single two-dimensional plot device masquerading as a human being.
Tootoosis’ portrayal of Adelard Fox is dignified and deeply empathetic, while DaSilva lights up the screen as his granddaughter Sarah Fox. First-time filmmaker Sorenson shows a deftness and finesse with the pacing and mood of the film that must be seen to be believed. In addition to all of this, the music is almost entirely courtesy of Alberta artists who loved the project so much, they just had to be part of it in some way.
Hank Williams First Nation is the kind of film that wraps itself around you quietly and leaves its tendrils clinging to your mind and mood long after the credits have run. The Village Voice called the film "the best undistributed film of 2004," and they weren’t wrong. |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.