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(Wildhood ● BFI Flare London LGBTQ Film Festival ● Thursday 24 March 2022 17:50 BFI Southbank, NFT1 ● Friday 25 March 2022 15:20 BFI Southbank, NFT3)
https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Flare/Online/default.asp
"Wildhood"
In a rural east-coast trailer park, Link (Phillip Lewitski) lives with his toxic father Arvin (Joel Thomas Hynes), his late Indigenous mother Sarah (Savonna Spracklin) and younger half-brother Travis (Avery Winters-Anthony). When Link discovers his Mi'kmaw mother could still be alive, it lights a flame and they make a run for a better life. On the road they meet Pasmay (Joshua Odjick), a pow wow dancer drawn to Link. As the boys journey across Mi’kma’ki, Link finds community, identity, and love in the land where he belongs.
When watching "Wildhood", take note that there are two parallel stories playing out concurrently. On the surface, "Wildhood" opens at the point of no return for Link. His childhood, rough and troubled. The pressures of youth have created mounting frustration and anger that he aims inwards and outwards. Link at the start of the film is an untamed wild dog, effortlessly rebellious, someone who fights to the death to protect his kin, but who can also reach into those soft gooey bits that we all have. When he discovers a collection of birthday cards from his mother that his father has hidden from him, he realizes his mother might still be alive. He knows nothing about her or her Mi’kmaw people. For him, this unknown is a path he hasn't walked, and he senses that it might be the key to finding his place. There's nothing for Link in the trailer park where he has lived his whole life. So he moves forward and 'forward' is the woods, the forest, the back roads, the rivers, the lakes. Stepping into that world, he opens himself up to a connection that's always been there, but now, because he's made space, he allows those things to come alive and that relationship with the land to exist. Burning all the bridges behind him, he and his young half-brother, Travis head out.
Travis is Link's half-brother from a different mother and brings a freshness and comedy into the story because he's young enough that he can interject moments of levity into serious situations. He can also deliver with piercing truths because he usually has the wrong thing to say at the exact right time, which in the end makes it somehow perfect for the moment. There’s a protectiveness that he has for Travis, that all brothers have, and the growing importance of the relationship with Pasmay, who becomes a protector for these boys. Link meets Pasmay at the most confusing time in his life. As much as Travis is this person Link has leaned on up to this moment, he needs someone his age, at his maturity level, that he can have real genuine conversations with and that's when Pasmay appears. These are two lone wolves spotting each other, and Pasmay wants to create his own pack. That's why he continues to stick around and help Link and Travis. Walking the land is a healing process in itself. Out of that newly opened space, he meets this oddball, handsome, charming, funny guy, Pasmay, who seems like he's got it together. Pasmay knows the Mi'kmaw language, and he recognizes something in this other teenager and so offers to help because Pasmay's looking for a family of his own. And so the three, Link, Travis and Pasmay, begin to travel together.
In traveling to find Link's mother, there's a sharing of hardships and triumphs which in turn creates bonds, something Link had never experienced before with anyone other than Travis. Along this journey, all the people Link encounters, from the youngest to the oldest, have something to impart, but not in the Western notion of. Gradually, Link learns something more profound; to observe, to experience and to listen. He hears many things about his mother that paints an incomplete picture that's often at odds with itself. When things are discordant like that, there must be a truth buried somewhere. Pasmay and Link are from different worlds. What they're trying to do, they can't do alone. It's hard to do things alone. In Mi’kmaw language, there’s a conjugation that reflects two people doing activities together. This would have been more common pre-contact because everywhere you went, into the woods, fishing, hunting, there would be at least two people.
Pasmay is a 2S person and he knows this, while Link is someone who's moving into that space, but he doesn’t know the depth or meaning of it yet. He's beginning his journey without that connection and it can take many years. He feels fragmented and unbalanced. The common thing for all of the different characters' paths is love, it's always there, but they aren’t ready to see it. Link moves through a fog, trying to find out who he's and where he belongs. Encountering culture, language, and the land help him to heal and rediscover his sense of self, his story. It brings him into that worldview and shows him that he's related to all of the things around him. In the search for his mother, Link doesn't get everything he wants. He gets something that he needs. He gets a connection. He gets to see where he came from.
"Wildhood" is a road trip film, and a buddy film. Identity and language being so deeply interconnected, the presence of Mi'kmaw dialogue in the script supports the themes of the film. When connecting or reconnecting with Indigenous culture, you better understand life because the language is descriptive. It’s through the language that the relationship between the People and the land is found and can truly be understood. The language expresses a worldview, a way of seeing things, that's different from a Western way of thinking and doing. It's at the core of importance to identity and history. The Mi’kmaw language extends back over 10,000 years and contains the stories, the land that we live on. Because Mi’kmaw culture is based on oral storytelling and oral histories. Pjila’si guides the heart of Wildhood. It’s used in modern times to mean welcome. dig deeper and the root of the meaning that’s behind it's there, come and take your place. This phrase was used when someone came visiting and could be applied when entering a dwelling, or coming to the community itself. It implies belonging, that there's a place for each of us where we fit, and it's always there, waiting.
Two Spirit is a contemporary pan-Indigenous term that encompasses the Indigenous perspectives of gender and sexuality that interconnects with spirituality and cultural identity. It may include any of the terms such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer. Being Two Spirit also binds the historical collective experience into our identity as Two Spirit. It honours the duality of male/female, non-gendered, and non-conforming expressions of gender. The term can be an expression of one's sexuality, or gender, or used interchangeably. It encompasses all of that. All the characters are on a journey of self-discovery. Being Two Spirit means your very nature challenges mainstream ideas of gender and sexuality. When you don’t fit into a rigid perception of identity, there's a struggle to break free, shed your skin, and understand yourself.
There's still things to unlearn and to re-learn. And there's still things to discover, but life is certainly a lot better and happier. The result room for something to grow now. And instead of a poorly potted plant in a trailer park scorched to death by the sun, this is a plant in the forest, able to grow and turn into a tree and thrive and bring something back, bring something good. As with the film, the aim of the music is to express a sense of longing for connection and acceptance, of each other, of our surroundings, of the earth,
Written by Gregory Mann
Wildhood - FIN Atlantic International Film Festival
FIN Stream at 7:00pm, September 16th, 2021 for 24 hours.
