TIFF 2020 film review: 'Inconvenient Indian'
Indigenous history is almost exclusively examined in the past tense - not unlike ancient, extinct civilizations. But the clear-eyed documentary 'Inconvenient Indian’ (screening during the 45th Toronto International Film Festival) examines what it means to be an Indigenous person living in the modern world.
In short: Adapted from Thomas King’s award-winning book, filmmaker Michelle Latimer explores the historic and ongoing ripple effects of the colonization of Indigenous peoples in North America.
This documentary has one simple goal: to present Native Americans as human beings. On its face, this seems like a pointless or redundant goal - because of course Indigenous people are people. Yet, this is exactly where 'Inconvenient' shines: it starts by systematically pointing out all the dehumanizing depictions of Indigenous people in the past century that puts distance between them and modern society. Latimer’s film starts out with the assertion that reducing Native Americans to Halloween costumes or background characters in Old West movies is symptomatic of a broader caricature that leads to fundamental and outdated misconceptions.
If documentaries, by definition, attempt to document the world as it is and as it was, then 'Inconvenient' flips the convention by critiquing the very nature of how indigenous people have been documented, depicted and recorded in history. This analysis of cultural appropriation on a commercial scale alone could have filled out a compelling feature-length documentary, yet 'Inconvenient' isn't content in just revealing the long-term effects of colonization. In its most powerful moments, 'Inconvenient' simply lets modern Indigenous people show the world how they live today. The film allows author Thomas King to make his stance quite clear on the matter of how Indigenous people have been treated for more than 100 years, but when it comes time to present how modern Native Americans exist, the film takes a more passive role of observer. It simply turns the camera toward today's Indigenous people living their modern lives today - often living with reverence with the old ways, but with focus on today and tomorrow.
'Inconvenient' outright rejects the staid and dated 'traditional' portrayals of Indigenous people, eschewing the usual sephia-tinged photography for a distinctly modern, vibrant and lively representation. Filmmaker Michelle Latimer's documentary speaks with a modernity that reinforces the film's thesis of Indigenous people not as an artifact of the past, but a living, evolving culture. Some version of this documentary could have mimicked the work of Ken Burns, however, that format would have actually undermined its very themes.
Final verdict: In an era of cinema becoming more aware of representation, this documentary is both an eye-opening condemnation of how Indigenous culture in North America was nearly eradicated - and a meta statement on the value of history as stories (including documentaries) that, in aggregate, have long-term consequences for marginalized populations.
Score: 4.5/5
'Inconvenient Indian' screens during TIFF 2020. This drama is unrated and has a running time of 90 minutes.
(Image courtesy of TIFF)
