Back on the rez again, in Jack Pettibone Riccobono's documentary, THE SEVENTH FIRE

Is there a cinema subject as consistently, singularly depressing as that our American Indians and the
"reservations" on which they are living -- and hopefully, leaving? (Except that, since it is usually the most promising of those young Indians who leave, this just makes it more depressing and difficult for those who remain.) Add to the list of worthwhile movies on this subject, both narrative and documentary, the new one by filmmaker Jack Pettibone Riccobono (shown below), THE SEVENTH FIRE.

The reason for the depression is twofold: first, what our country's "settlers" gave the Indians (smallpox, death and destruction) and how we have treated them ever since (hoarding them into ever smaller and less comfortable living quarters; even now we continue to take away their tribal land). "Make America Great Again"? Yeah, right, Mr. Trump. Maybe you could think about starting here. For all the horror of slavery, many Blacks survived, while the Indians were mostly decimated. What remains are condoned off and hidden away from most Americans.

The Seventh Fire -- that title has to do with some kind of spiritual incantation/episode/journey about which we learn very little -- takes us into the White Earth Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, where we meet, among others, two males important to the reservation. The older of these is 37-year-old Rob Brown (above and below), a big, beefy, good-looking guy who, during his life, grew up in some 39 foster homes, has already served five prison terms, and is now, as we first meet him, about to go away to prison once again.

Rob is the "criminal kingpin" of the rez, even though his supplying drugs and what-not to the locals seems to extend no further than the borders of the reservation. He also has a young daughter whom he loves and tries to care for -- clearly at somewhat of a distance.

The other male is a young man named Kevin, above and two photos below, who appears to be a kind of acolyte of Rob, striving to carve out his own large patch of the kingdom. Early on, Rob (or maybe it was another of the characters) tells Kevin, "If you're gonna risk your freedom, make sure the reward is worth it." Quite. Notes another rez resident, "One out of ten young people, every ten years, will make it out of here." This is not exactly a happy prognosis.

Mr. Riccobono takes a discursive, disjointed, seemingly haphazard and sometimes near-surreal (above) look at all this, bouncing from time and place so that we are not always sure what's going on or why. Some of his images are strange and compelling, and the film never loses our interest for long, but had I not had access to the press kit that accompanied the film and that did some explaining that The Seventh Fire itself fails to do, I am not sure I would have understood the documentary nearly so well.

On the plus side, Riccobono proves something of a smart investigator, following young Kevin around discreetly and perhaps on the sly. Initially we see and are charmed by the fact that Indians and whites in the local town get along so well. Well, sure and why not, since Kevin proves to be their drug dealer? We're privy here to everything from doing drugs and fighting to sexual connections. We even get an afternoon filled with Bingo.

All of this is, as expected, depressing as hell. You leave the film as you probably have so many others down the decades, narrative or documentary -- from Smoke Signals (one of the most positive of these movies) through Drunktown's Finest to the recent Songs My Brothers Taught Me --  with that gnawing sense of justice trampled in perpetuity, with nothing at all being done about this.

From Film Movement and running only 76 minutes (we probably could not take much more), The Seventh Fire has its U.S. theatrical premiere on Friday, July 22, in New York City at the new Metrograph theater, and on Friday, July 29 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. Another ten cities are scheduled for screenings in the weeks to come. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

In DRUNKTOWN'S FINEST, Sydney Freeland explores life in today's American-Indian town

Hard to believe, but it's been 27 years since the last really good movie -- Smoke Signals -- about modern-day American Indians hit the screen. DRUNKTOWN'S FINEST, the new film from first-time/full-length filmmaker Sydney Freeland, is not in that league -- it doesn't possess the poetry: visual from director Chris Eyre, verbal from screen-writer Sherman Alexie -- but it is still a movie worth seeing. More "modern," due to its inclusion of a transgendered character, as well as an adopted Indian raised by "whites," and of course the usual alcohol-problemed guy, the movie touches some of the new "bases" while remaining a relatively honest look a society ever in transition and trying to hold on to what's best about its past.

Ms Freeland, pictured at left, works in a realistic mode, while allowing a little leeway for the usual Indian "visions" thing. But she also lets her characters -- a couple of them, anyway -- appreciate the irony and humor of some of their "spirit" endeavors. And her New Mexico scenery is, as expected, often a pleasure to view.

As a screenwriter, Freeland's plot and dialog tend toward the plain and believable, despite maybe a coincidence or two too many; as director, she has surrounded herself with a professional crew, while keeping things moving along at a good clip and drawing decent performances from her mostly adept cast.

In her screenplay, Freeland gives us three main characters, the (somewhat) bad-boy-with-a-firewater-problem Luther (Jeremiah Bitsui, above), transgendered Felixia (newcomer Carmen Moore, below),

and the adoptee struggling with identity issues (MorningStar Angeline, below). All three characters are connected in ways that will not become apparent for some time. Fortunately, their connection does not insist on some clever plot surprise; it's just part of typical small-scale reservation life.

The film begins with the statement that this town is more likely a place to leave than a place to live. Two of our three characters are trying to get out, while the other is being prevented from getting in. What the moviemaker appears to be telling them -- and us, of course -- is that they ought to try to find some way to bring their life and location together.

To that end we meet some of the subsidiary characters: the kindly grandparents (one of whom is shown, above left), the problemed parents of two of our kids, and the far-too-into-the-drug-and-booze-culture friends of the three. Yet no one and nothing is held up as villainous and evil. We can understand and sympathize with the whole batch we meet here.

Finally, if things come together a little too easily, at least Ms Freeland does not tie up every loose end and smooth over all the rough patches. The finale -- which involves a young girl running (Magdelena Begay, below)-- reminded me of the ending in the current and quite exceptional Oscar nominee, Timbuktu. Except that here, the running is something positive and wonderful. It lifts our spirits -- as does, despite its flaws and pretty much in its entirety, Drunktown's Finest.

From Indion Entertainment the movie, running 92 minutes, opens this Friday in New York City at the Quad Cinema. Elsewhere? No idea, but as the film is a product of Sundance, with Robert Redford credited as an executive producer, one would imagine the film might open at one of the several Sundance Cinemas.