Review of "Prey"

It’s nearing that time of year again: the air is getting crisper, the days are getting cooler, and I’m starting to have the urge to crack into my emergency stash of pumpkin spice chai. It’s around this time of year I start sniffing around for new movies to review for my list of colonial horror movies. But summer isn’t quite over yet: now is the last week to catch up with any blockbusters you’ve missed. Case in point, Prey, the latest addition to the Predator franchise. (And yes, though technically a sci-fi action movie, considering it's a monster flick in a historical setting, I’m including it within the genre of colonial horror).

To be honest, the trailer had left me a little indifferent. After getting burned by the atrociously stupid The Predator (2018), I felt the series had overstayed its welcome long ago. After subjecting myself to the mishandling of a cherished movie monster these past years, was I going to go through with it once more, with the risk of seeing a colonial setting being mishandled as well?

Imagine my surprise when both historian and non-historian friends were abuzz over the movie. I was even more surprised to find out that this time, the Predator was squaring off not only against a young woman of the Comanche nation (also known as the Padoucas by the French), but also against a gang of French-Canadian fur trappers. Bracing for the worse, I gathered my popcorn and laptop. In the end, I was rewarded for giving this movie a chance.

Narratively, the strongest point of the movie is how its story is trim and to the point. Gone are the mires of awkward plots and world building in the last few movies. In a nutshell, the setting is the Northern great plains in September of 1719. Our heroine, Naru (stunningly played by Amber Midthunder) is a young woman trying to prove to the rest of the young Comanche of her village that she is as good a hunter as any of the men, including her own brother (played by a very enjoyable Dakota Beavers). Following an attack on a member of their village, all of the young hunters head out to kill whatever animal is responsible.  Soon they cross paths with the tracks of… something. As Naru attempts to convince the other hunters that what they are looking for is not a regular beast, the group gets ambushed and outwitted by an invisible assailant. In the end, it is up to Naru and her wits to stop the creature, but that’s if she can first escape from fur traders intent on using her and her brother as bait for the monster…

Right off the bat, the care invested in portraying the Comanche shines though by having the introductory narration begin in said language. As the words slip into English, the movie unfolds strictly from an Indigenous point of view. To stress the audience’s association with the protagonists, all other languages remain foreign (in this case, French. Well, kinda, as we’ll see…).

Plot wise, there is nothing I can say against the movie’s portrayal of history. Though it certainly has its fair share of tiny anachronisms and historical mistakes, these are all in all easily overlooked details. The important thing is that none of these mistakes hinder the story. Just as I had previously discussed the importance of authenticity vs accuracy in movies in a past post, I tend to be more forgiving of a period movie as long as historical mistakes do not have an irredeemable effect on the plot (in this case, Prey is a world above such abominations as Barkskins).

However, the portrayal of French fur-traders rests on a caricature, a gross stereotype. Once again, though we can applaud Hollywood’s efforts to hire as many Indigenous actors as possible for Indigenous roles, alas, as usual, French-Canadians are neglected and not afforded the same courtesy. As far as I can tell, in the entire cast, only a single actor was actually French-Canadian (and his character was killed off fairly quickly, might I add). As for the rest of the French characters, my ears were just about to bleed with their terrible garbled fake French. However, I can’t deny that anytime I did understand, they made me chuckle (“J'aime le chien, ça goûte mieux que le castor.”/”I like dog, it tastes better than beaver.”). And as usual, my principle pet peeve was plastered all across the screen: if there is one detail I can’t stand anymore in colonial movies, it’s anachronistic beards. I said it before, I’ll say it again: not only were beards out of style by the 18^th century, but traders also knew that Indigenous clients did not respect a man with facial hair. Yet, here we have a (metric crap ton) of uncouth Frenchmen walking around, artificially dirty and hairy (and what’s with that fur worn all willy nilly?). Furthermore, they should have been dressed in a mixed style of European shirts and Indigenous leggings. In the end, I’ll simply say they looked too gruff and dirty, as well as being nearly carbon copies of each other, like expendable bad guys, which, to be fair, they were. However, regarding this last point, I do think scriptwriters need to stop simply reducing characters of any ethnicity to caricatures to fulfil a need in the plot. As these trappers are reduced to a generalized brutish stereotype, they are not only hurtful (don’t get me started on growing up as a French-Canadian kid ashamed of his roots from seeing nearly all French-Canadians characters in movie portrayed as nothing more but brutes or idiotic clowns), their actions also contradict actual French attempts in this period to contact the Comanche in hopes of establishing trade. In the end, considering the care given to represent Indigenous characters as correctly as possible, it is a shame this same care was not afforded to French-Canadian ones.

All this said, I can’t be too harsh however, since just before watching the movie I discovered that historian Steven Brumwell had been consulted. He had offered suggestions and rectifications to the script which certainly helped elevate the authenticity of the movie (including reminding the producers that the Comanche had horses, suggesting the inclusion of French-Canadians trappers to begin with [Correction. They were already in the script. See Brumwell's comments in the comment section], and replacing blunderbusses with French trade guns). And let's be honest: I was totally rooting for the trappers when they took on the Predator. As a kid growing up watching the Schwarzenegger movie, I never thought I'd see the day the Predator would be fighting French-Canadians...

As usual, however, historical consultation will always remain a game of give and take. Here is a quick list of things (whether historical or not) I didn’t like or for which am petty enough to point out:

• The Comanche village should be much, much larger. In the next three decades, La Vérendrye would be pushing his westward explorations accompanied by hundreds if not thousands of Plains’ indigenous people.
• Someone forgot to tell the sound designer that cougars are not literally mountain lions: they don’t sound like their African name-sake.
• Story wise, they could have waited a bit longer before revealing the Predator so soon. I know the fans are excited, but it would have maintained the suspense for people unfamiliar with the character.
• I'll spoil a jump scare by saying dead, skinned snakes don't writhe around hours after they were killed.
• I know they were highlighting Naru’s talents as a hunter, but did the guys have to look like such amateurs?
• Why are just the young hunters hunting? There are never any adults or elders helping out or at the very least teaching them how to hunt...
• The portrayal of a field filled with dozens of dead, skinned bison is a bit of an anachronism. The filmmakers were obviously making a reference to the later decimations of the 19^th century (which, ironically, the Comanche actively participated in). However, I must agree it’s a cool parallel to the skinless corpses the Predator leaves behind in the other movies…
• Doesn't matter in what scrape Naru is in, her eyeliner remains perfect.
• I’m questioning the use of stone tools at this time as Indigenous trade in European knives and axes had been going on for decades now.

Quick things I really, really enjoyed:

• This movie is gorgeous to look at, beautifully filmed in Alberta. The backgrounds are simply stunning.
• The end credits imitating Indigenous art *chef's kiss*
• I'm not comfortable commenting on the Comanche costumes (I am not a material specialist), but they looked amazing for Hollywood standards, even if I suspect a bit of liberty taken.

All it all, it’s not a perfect movie, but it is perfectly entertaining. In the end, there is much more to love about this movie than there is to criticise. Let’s not forget what it is, either: a crazy sci-fi where an Indigenous woman is facing off an 8-foot-tall alien killing machine… hardly a documentary. Still, as a historian, I’ve seen much worse historically-speaking; I’m willing to easily forgive the few historical mistakes because on the other hand, as a sci-fi nerd, I’m not sure the franchise deserved such a great addition, easily the best since the original.

The Revenant That Won't Go Away...

This is now the third time I bring up the movie, The Revenant. Our friends at ActiveHistory.ca have come up with four fascinating blog posts regarding the movie. I thought my readership might enjoy reading them, following the movie's controversial take on the fur trade and Hugh Glass' life:

• “Inspired by True Events”: The Fur Trade, The Revenant, and Humanity, by Ted Binnema
• Hugh Glass: The Evolution of a Legend, by Claire Kaufman
• The True Revenants of a Buried Past, by Michel Bouchard
• Religion and Auteurism in The Revenant, by Benjamin Bryce and Anna Casas Aguilar

Review: The VVitch

Last October, my girlfriend and I decided to adopt a second cat. Searching on the internet, we stumbled on a litter of kittens in need of a good home. Among the furry faces on our screen, we immediately fell in love with the tiny bewildered mug of the only black kitten. Upon contacting the current owner of the cats, we were surprised to find out he was available for 25% cheaper than the others. Asking why, we were told that black cats don’t sell as well because of... superstition. Yes, indeed, in our modern society, people still believe that black cats are bad luck. Clearly, old habits die hard. Ironically, if black cats have such a reputation thanks to their centuries-old implied connection to witches, witches, on the other hand, do not necessarily actively haunt our fears and anxieties to such a scale anymore. It would be remiss, however, to believe that tales of witches are the stuff of the past, or as they are more popularly remembered, from the Salem trials. (By the way, if New France was spared the outright witch panic that gripped Salem, the fear of such hags was not altogether unheard of. And let’s not forget a direct link between Québec and Salem: William Phips' attempt to capture the French colony had, after all, shortly preceded his appointment as the governor of Massachusetts... during which his wife would be accused of witchcraft.) As author Owen Davies’ book America Bewitched demonstrates, witches and witchcraft have always been present in one form or another throughout American history. Furthermore, how can we forget the laughable controversy surrounding U.S. politician Christine O’Donnell who, in 2010, felt compelled to reassure her potential electors that she was not a witch? But for your average movie-goer, witches take a backseat, way back that is, to the current parade of cinema monsters: zombies, vampires and werewolves. True, witches have made quite a few appearances in Hollywood’s line of horror films, but ask anyone what is the first witchcraft movie or TV show that springs to mind and chances are he or she will mention the benign TV series Charmed or the Blair Witch Project with its disappointing ending devoid of any real payoff. So, in my opinion at least, it is quite a challenge to create a movie about a witch which (see what I did there?) really evokes how scary witches are supposed to be.

Move over Sabrina, this is the witch we’ve been waiting for.

The VVitch is reminiscent of Renaissance woodcuts
such as this one by Hans Baldung. 

Directed by Robert Eggers, The VVitch takes place in the early 17th century in the vicinity of an unnamed English colony (Jamestown? Plymouth? Take your pick). The story centers on a puritan family that decides to leave their town to strike out on their own in the wilderness. Headed by patriarch William, they settle in, believing they are following God’s will. Soon, however, something seems amiss... the cumulating crop failures, hunting accidents, and strange goings-on lead them to believe they are cursed by God... or is it something more sinister? Indeed, as each family member starts believing a witch is the cause of their woes, accusations run amok...

Beyond this simple story line, the movie is much more complex. Though never explicitly said, the story can be at once a metaphor for despair and the obsessive quest for reason behind cumulated failure and how family can tear apart in such a situation. Only this time, the scapegoat is, quite literally, real. Other reviewers have touched upon different themes as well, such as “the perils of heavily religious upbringing”. But what is probably the most important theme is the dichotomy between the extremes of total constraint and submission versus complete mental liberation at the cusp of womanhood (as illustrated per the actions of Thomasin, the teenaged main character who just can’t seem to get a break from her parents and obnoxious younger siblings).

What makes this movie a true gem however is the care invested in establishing the historical setting. I can never hope to do a better historical commentary on this movie than Alexandra Montgomery’s review, Discovering Witches, over at the Junto. But, I will repeat what is being said all over the media: the main strength of this film is the director’s obsession with historical accuracy. The viewer’s anxiety and dread, as well as the efficacy of the witch as a terrifying antagonist, all depend on this fact and its resulting atmosphere oozing with superstition, fear, loneliness, and the unknown.

For your average horror fan, this movie is surprisingly devoid of gore. However, the movie makes apt use of creepiness (you will never look at rabbits the same way again...). Using the woods near Mattawa, Ontario, as a stand-in for New England’s primeval forests, a sense of isolation really sets in, giving way to sordid and terrifying evocations of the mind. As I have just mentioned, this skillful interpretation was not so much imagined by director Eggers so much as resurrected from period sources and artwork. As he is quoted saying regarding his obsession with realism:

“So much has been made of the authenticity of this, and of course that’s important to me, but authenticity for the sake of authenticity doesn’t really matter [...]. To understand why the witch archetype was important and interesting and powerful—and how was I going to make that scary and alive again—we had to go back in time to the early modern period when the witch was a reality. And the only way I was going to do that, I decided, was by having it be insanely accurate.”

The witch in this case is truly terrifying. Far behind us are the portrayals of the sexy witch (The Craft) or the goofy witch (Hocus Pocus)—this is the witch that was hunted by inquisitors and haunted the nightmares of Goya. The old crone, the hag, the witch, call her what you will, she is not the stuff of fairytales but of true horror. Yet, what makes her so frightening is not the handful of glimpses we get, but rather her heavy, invisible presence. Eggers weaves his story and visuals in such a way that you are constantly wondering who—or what—is being manipulated by the witch, instilling the same sense of paranoia that must have been sensed by peasants at the very worst of the witch hunts. He has not only effectively distilled the essence of the witch panic of Europe and Salem, but did so on a personal scale and gave the viewer a front row seat.

All in all, this movie will put a spell on you.

PS for those who have seen the movie: #babybutter

PPS Update: Check out Casey Schmitt's take on the movie as well:  https://earlyamericanists.com/2016/02/22/how-we-love-to-hate-puritan-new-england/

The Revenant Review Follow-Up

Ever since I wrote my (very short) review of The Revenant, people have been asking my honest opinion on how the French-Canadian trappers were represented. The question seems to have gained notoriety ever since actor and activist Roy Dupuis basically accused the movie of being racist towards French-Canadians. He denounces the way they are apparently portrayed as inherently evil. However, I guess the question should rather be: who do I take more issue with: the filmmakers or Dupuis?

My honest answer? A long, drawn out and puzzled “Meh?”, shrugging with my hands in the air.

That is, I’m on the fence, meeting Dupuis and the filmmakers half-way on the issue. Let’s face the facts: the movie does not portray French-Canadians under a good light. They are basically shown as raping, pillaging pirates of the West (though with apparently better hygiene than the American trappers, I’ve noticed...). Clearly, most French-Canadians did not act like this. But was the intention to paint a broad portrait of all French-Canadians? We must first dispel what Dupuis claimed to support his statement: he says that only the French-Canadian characters are seen killing people (“Pourquoi donc le cinéaste n’a-t-il pas montré les meurtres commis par les Américains?”). Apparently we watched two different movies, for the movie depicts numerous scenes of murder, attempted murder and fights between Americans and Natives (*SPOILER* namely the antagonist killing the protagonist’s métis son). There is open racism against natives. Heck, the very opening of the movie focuses on the destruction of an entire Native village by Americans. In fact, everybody in this story is violent and wary of the “other”: French, Americans, and yes, even Natives (though all for different reasons). In this context, the singling out of French-Canadians in the movie just seems odd- implying they should have been angels instead of the fiends they are portrayed as. This insinuation smacks of the same racism generalizing tends to do, one way or another.

Yes, I can agree with Dupuis that French-Canadians were much better at sustaining peaceful, meaningful relationships with Native populations when compared to the British and Spanish. But one can’t forget trade primarily sustained these relationships. The Métis of the plains are the most famous example of the mingling of Native women and French frontiersmen. But as Europeans became less and less dependent of Natives (and of the French links to them), just as many of these cultural relationships broke down as families largely reintegrated white communities. Lets us also remember that the world of 1823 is different than that of 1723: the search for furs led men further out West, and violence followed suit. In fact, when the Hudson Bay Company merged with its competitors in 1821, one of the main reasons was because of the frontier violence between their employees, which just had to stop according to British officials. And yes, many of the belligerents were French-Canadian.

And what about Dupuis' claim that most Frenchmen married Native women and created today’s French-Canadians? Serge Bouchard already answered last year by reminding us only 1% of Quebec’s genetics contains Native genes... A fact that Dupuis curiously glosses over in his own documentary as researcher Hélène Vézina tells him that even if 75% or so of French-Canadian genealogies contain at least one Native ancestor, this only represents a mere 1% genetic presence in French-Canada. Dupuis, then, is just as prone to sweeping generalisations.

As for his claim that there were only a few “brutes” amongst French-Canadians, Dupuis is flirting dangerously close with the “No true Scotsman” fallacy. I would like to point out that in the heyday of French-Native relations under the French Regime, harmony was not exactly perfect. A quick keyword search through Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec reveals that though there are many judicial cases against Natives for rape, murder and stealing, cases against Frenchman doing wrong to Natives are conspicuously absent. Instead of bolstering Dupuis’s claims, this fact demonstrates that colonial justice was not as preoccupied with rendering justice to Natives as it was with Frenchmen. Let us not forget also that loyalties constantly shifted between various Amerindian Nations and the French: one decade they would be fighting alongside each other, the other, against. And one should never forget that the French waged an all out war against the Fox in the 1730’s, and that with their Choctaw allies, they basically eradicated the Natchez in the same decade. In a final example of everyday violence against Natives, it would be neglectful to forget that the French traded in Indian slaves; in 1752, in Kaskaskia alone, Native slaves represented 11% of the population. And I doubt they were all kindly treated... So much for Dupuis’ criticism of the portrayal of slavery in the movie.

Don’t get me wrong, however: I admire Dupuis’ effort to remind us of French-Canada’s debt to First Nations. However, his concerns are an echo of modern French-Canadian society’s unfortunate and naive complacency. How often do we hear phrases like “We loved Natives”, “We didn’t steal their lands”, “We...”, “We...”, “we...”. But as was brought up in a recent colloquium, while on the one hand French-Canadian society pats itself on the back for having treated Native peoples better than most colonists, we are forgetting we still had a hand in many of their problems. If, for example, certain French-Canadians point out that it was an Anglophone government that instated Native residential schools in Canada, they conveniently forget that many of the catholic employees of these institutions were French-Canadian...

Following these arguments, I take less issue with the handful of French-Canadian renegades shown in the movie than with Dupuis’ over-idealized view of French-Indian relations. As Allan Greer reminds us regarding the movie, “Drunkenness, sex slavery, rape; can’t think of any direct evidence for the latter, but who knows what evil deeds went unrecorded in a setting where there are no institutions of justice as we know them?”

So what do I think of The Revenant’s portrayal of French-Canadians? Vicious, indeed, yet not totally uncalled for, but not totally necessary either. Having thrown in a few neutral if not outright good French-Canadian characters could have nuanced the movie and brought it closer to reality. For my taste, a much better portrayal of an average French-Canadian mountain-man would be Pasquinel, one of the protagonists from 1978’s miniseries, Centennial. Yet, in a movie where no one is shown on their most positive side, it’s hard to accuse the director of favouritism as Dupuis claims. Instead, we are reminded once again that the past is often an uncomfortable place, whether we want to admit it or not...

The Revenant

NOTE: This initial review was rooted in a cinematic appreciation of the movie, not necessarily a historical one. Following many criticisms of my review, I did a follow up review based on the accuracy of the movie instead. Mea culpa for what should have been my primary focus, being that I am, after all, a historian! The Revenant Review Follow-Up 

I finally went to see The Revenant. It's not a New France movie, but there is a tiny link as you will see. 

My overall opinion? Amazing movie. 

Loosely based on a true story (read here), the movie follows the quest for revenge of Hugh Glass (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) after being left for dead following a bear mauling. If the true story is in and of itself amazing, this movie is a breathtaking cinematic retelling.

However, my theory is the more perfect a movie is, the more jarring the mistakes are, especially in one they tried so hard to be faithful to realism. Here are my qualms: 

• The movie takes plenty of liberties regarding Hugh Glass (which I will begrudgingly give a pass, considering how little we know of him to begin with). 
• Fur bales are a hell of a lot heavier than they make them look in the first scene.
• The poignancy of the death of a native character was mitigated by my confusion over the placard that said "Nous sommes tous sauvages". I understand the movie makers wanted to make a startling commentary on what they thought meant "We are all Savages", but that is not the meaning nor the origin of the phrase. This sign is an anachronism taken in reality from La Salle's expeditions; the sign was found left behind by deserters who joined natives ("We are all wild/Indians"). Hence, the meaning of the sign is supposed to convey the opposite of what was intended by the filmmakers.
• The audio often did not match what we were seeing in regards to forest shots and the wind we heard, and the lip sync with certain scenes where Natives spoke was terribly off.
• I had a major beef with the fact they spent so much time justifying how Glass survived hypothermia, but dropped the ball when he threw himself in icy cold water for who knows how long and somehow survived without any means to warm up.
• Finally, my biggest pet peeve, they hired French actors instead of French-Canadians to do the French trapper scenes. The accent and vocabulary left me feeling I was in a Parisian café instead of the middle of the wilderness. 

THAT said...

• The movie's scope and scenery are breathtaking. 
• The opening scene is one of the most amazing action sequences I've ever seen, making you feel as though you are physically there. 
• The acting is superb (Tom Hardy might steal the show, however- I kept forgetting I was looking at Tom Hardy. Without taking away how amazing DiCaprio was as well. Both need Oscars).
• The emotional punchline at the end knocked the wind out of me.
• The action is amazing.
• The effects are dazzling.
• The entire way the movie was shot is how I always wished to see a historical movie, making you forget there are people behind the camera, without being reliant on blatant CGI either. 

All in all, this is one not to be missed on the big screen

FOLLOW UP: I stumbled on this opinion piece on Natives in cinema I think is well worth the read: http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/indigenous-peoples-stories-need-more-than-just-leonardo-dicaprios-speech

Critique : Northwest Passage (1958-1959)

J'invite tous ceux qui aiment les vieilles séries télévisées à visiter mon autre blogue, It's A Funny History, pour lire ma critique de la série Northwest Passage. (En anglais)

http://itsafunnyhistory.blogspot.ca/2012/10/anachronisms-ahoy.html