Big Game
Big Game opens with a 13-year-old boy going hunting on his own, armed with only a bow and arrow, as part of a coming-of-age ceremony. Whatever he brings back-rabbit, deer, bear-marks him for life: this is the kind of man he is. Now that's pressure. One of the fun things about "Big Game" is that while it clearly takes place in present day, I would guess that you could take the first twenty pages of the script, remove only the stage directions, and shoot this same sequence set in 1500 AD.
It's a fun, fascinating look at the ways how, in some places in the world, culture and time-honored ceremony stay the same, even as technology changes around us. Unfortunately, the rest of "Big Game" doesn't live up to the beauty and depth of that opening set of scenes.
Inuit elders have a dream about the sun getting mad and kissing the earth. So they send Theo (Theo Ikummaq) south, to inform world leaders about it, because Theo attended boarding school and speaks English-though he appears to have learned nothing else about American culture during that experience.
As "Big Game" opens, a 13-year-old boy must go hunting on his own, armed with only a bow and arrow, as part of a coming-of-age ceremony. Whatever he brings back-rabbit, deer, bear-marks him for life: this is the kind of man he is. Now that's pressure.
One of the fun things about "Big Game" is that it starts with this ceremony, somewhere in the ice and snow of Scandinavia. And while it clearly takes place in present day, I would guess that you could take the first twenty pages of the script, remove only the stage directions, and shoot this same sequence set in 1500 AD. The men would be carrying their supplies on sledges pulled by reindeer instead of four wheelers and pickup trucks, and you'd have to change the costuming a bit. That's all. The words would stay the same.
It's a fun, fascinating look at the ways how, in some places in the world, culture and time-honored ceremony stay the same, even as technology changes around us.
Unfortunately, the rest of "Big Game" doesn't live up to the beauty and depth of that opening set of scenes. Once the President of the United States is on the scene, the film hews pretty closely to dumb action movie tropes, as established by films like "White House Down" and "Air Force One."
The terrorists who shoot down the president's plane are two-dimensional, and the conspiracy they're a part of is ridiculous. The camerawork relies far too heavily on slow-motion shots to juice up pedestrian action sequence, and the director seems to have a special fascination with helicopters, both in front of and behind the camera.
But if I'm going to watch a dumb action flick, I'd rather it be this one, if just for this scene alone: the president tries to commandeer the boy's four-wheeler. "This is now property of the United States of America," he says, with a serious look on his face.
"The h--- it is," the boy says to the most powerful man in the world. "This is a big forest. You will get lost." Of course the two help each other escape their dilemmas and accomplish their goals, by the end. But it's fun to watch the Commander-in-Chief learn about the woods from a thirteen-year-old Indigenous boy.
Chloe and Theo
In "Chloe and Theo," Inuit elders have a dream about the sun getting mad and kissing the earth. So they send Theo (Theo Ikummaq) south, to inform world leaders about it, because Theo attended boarding school and speaks English-though he appears to have learned nothing else about American culture during that experience.
Dakota Johnson, in a performance completely subtle, leads a merry band of indigents who feel like they're straight out of a play written by sixth-graders. Johnson befriends Theo, and helps him on his mission. Along the way, weak points are made about skyscrapers and the way we treat our elders. Then Johnson decides the United Nations are the elders Theo really needs to talk to, and they promptly get arrested in the UN lobby.
Theo finally connects with an activist (Mira Sorvino) who has some connections, decides he needs to climb 67 flights of stairs while those connections are waiting, and seems about to accomplish his mission (on some level-appearing Larry King isn't exactly the same as speaking to the President or making a difference) when apparently the filmmakers ran out of money and slapped a corny tragic ending on the whole affair.
There is almost nothing to like about this movie. It props up an Indigenous person as a mascot for a cause. In my mind, that's not very different than using a Native as a mascot for a football team. It continues on stereotypes of Native people as "earth children," morally pure and naive about the world of the 21st century. It feels like a two-hour version of that commercial from the '70s, where Iron Eyes Cody sheds a tear over pollution.
Here's a much better movie that could've been made. It's been in the news lately that Inuit elders are reporting to astronomers that the earth has shifted on its axis, changing where the sun rises in the morning, and the astronomers are listening. Surely this was the germ from which this movie sprang. Following that idea would've provided opportunities to explore the ways that the Inuit people forecast the weather, as well as its importance to their way of life.
It would've given opportunities to explore more complicated relationships between traditional and scientific knowledge, between scientists, elders and activists. So why did the filmmakers feel the need to invent a dream about the sun getting mad and kissing the earth? Because, dear reader, they think we are too stupid to handle the real story.
Movies can commit a lot of crimes, but to me, the unforgivable sin is insulting my intelligence.
Willie Krischke lives in Durango, Colorado and works for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship with Native American students at Fort Lewis College. To read
more of his reviews, go to http://www.gonnawatchit.com
