Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: NIGHT RAIDERS [Toronto International Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]
The aspect of control and acceptance is based in the idea of knowing where llfe might take you. The aspect of colonialization and reconditioning to a certain way of life obviously reflects in the invaders and is almost solely motivated by money. In "Night Raiders" [Gala], writer/director Danis Goulet uses a post Civil War structure in the future to paint the idea of defending land but as the native people. As part of First Nations (she is Cree-Métis filmmaker from La Ronge, Saskatchewan who lives in Toronto), she does realize that genre is definitely a way to tell a story of repercussion and deliberation. The film follows Niska (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) and her young daughter Waseese (Brooklyn Letexier-Hart) who live off the land while drones comb for stragglers after the conclusion of a war in North America. All young people are sent to academy camps to be educated and reconditioned. This was something that happened with residential schools that Goulet mentioned in her pre-screening remarks to many First Nation in Canada and has been a discussion in a certain way in more recent time. This seems a variation of re-education that America tried to do post-Civil War in the 1800s.
The story uses different myth, both aboriginal and metaphorical, to tells its story including one of a chosen one, a Guardian, who will help safeguard the people. Niska is recruited by what was her original tribe (in the Cree) but it is a push and pull in between what is right and what can be accepted. The integration of drones and a reflection of birds in that way is an diametric parallel which is quite relevant especially in the way Waseese sees her situation as she is reconditioned for military service (masked as school). Amanda Plummer plays a woman who helps shelter her though her intention in the story becomes one more of tragedy not wanting to believe that her kin has betrayed her. The aspect also of a virus spreading, likely created, is also interestingly interwoven. Ultimately the story speaks as a parable to the natural form of things. The young are the future but it is the civilization that is fought for that makes the difference while still maintaining those lessons, stories and ways of life that are held dear. B
By Tim Wassberg
