Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Chloé Zhao
Starring: John Reddy, Jashaun St. John, Travis Lone Hill, Taysha Fuller, Irene Bedard
I've long felt that America is wasted on modern American filmmakers.
Where once American directors ventured out into their country's great
landscape and filmed craggy actors like Warren Oates and Walter Brennan,
today's crop would rather shoot a bunch of British public school
graduates in front of a greenscreen in a Burbank warehouse.
Chloé Zhao may be Chinese, but her films are more American than
most of the movies made by her American contemporaries. Her storytelling
is as American as that of Ford, Hawks and Peckinpah. Her stories are
populated by the same sort of people – stubborn, rugged individuals who
symbolise everything that makes America so equally fascinating and
frustrating. Her first two movies take place in a neglected corner of
America, South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, with members of
the local Lakota Sioux community playing alternate versions of
themselves. Zhao isn't concerned with plot so much as characters, and
how those characters coalesce into a community. Her films have much in
common with the recent work of Malick, with the landscape, the horses
and everything else under that big Dakota sky playing a vital role in
the drama.
Zhao broke out with her second feature, 2017's
The Rider, but it's only now that her 2015 debut
Songs My Brothers Taught Me is seeing the light of day on
this side of the pond, likely due to the awards buzz around her
acclaimed third feature, Nomadland.
As with The Rider, Zhao's debut is centred on a young man who finds himself at a
crossroads. High school is coming to a close for Johnny (John Reddy), but he's never been one for book learnin' anyhow. With alcohol
banned from the reservation, Johnny earns a living selling bootleg hooch
to the local drunks. He's saving up his money to buy a battered pickup
truck from his boss, which he plans to use to drive his girlfriend
Aurelia (Taysha Fuller) to Los Angeles. Aurelia has won a place
in an LA law school, but Johnny hasn't given much thought to how he'll
support himself in the city, if he's even fully committed to the
idea.
Heartbroken at the thought of her big brother leaving her alone with
their sullen, alcoholic mother (Irene Bedard), Johnny's kid
sister Jashaun (Jashaun St. John) avoids him and begins hanging
out with Travis (Travis Lone Hill), a heavily tattooed ex-con,
ex-alcoholic who has since found God and sobriety but who seems ready to
fall off the wagon at any moment.
Much like The Rider, Songs... is about a young working class man learning to
accept the hand he's been dealt. It shares a common theme with Philip
Kaufman's The Wanderers and Tyler Taormina's recent indie
gem
Ham on Rye
– that of being left behind when your friends venture off to build a
life you haven't earned the qualifications for. Through the eyes of
Johnny and Jashaun we get two very different views of the reservation.
Johnny sees it merely as a place to escape from, but for Jashaun it's a
place of wonder. Johnny falls for a young white woman who seems only
interested in him as an adventure, or fuel for a future anecdote.
Jashaun immerses herself in her community, seeing only the good in
people, even when they can't see it themselves. Her relationship with
Travis is incredibly sweet, but it's also a damning indictment of how
many children spend their childhoods looking after grown-up men who
can't get their shit together.
Snatches of Johnny's inner monologue suggest a cynical view of the
reservation. He describes it as a place that hardens its inhabitants,
and we get the feeling that his childhood was similarly stolen by
necessity. But as he walks through its canyons, gazes up at the blue
badlands sky and lets the earth run through his fingers, it's all too
clear that for better or worse, this is where he belongs.
It's ironic that a filmmaker from China found a natural home in this
corner of America – what a shame that she too has now been tempted by
the bright lights of Los Angeles, as you can't help but feel that Pine
Ridge has many more stories to tell.
