Cinema: ‘Wild Indian’ Creating for a Community
Growing out from a traumatic experience. Wild Indian is a character study on how two young boys deal with a dark day that they share from their past. This experience comes to define who they are, turning them into two very different individuals. It is this mirroring of personality that makes the film so intriguing. The script is fresh and is written with the understanding that life experience influences cinema. Unlike the two characters in the film stunted by their past, this new director steps in a direction that has the ability to define what Native American cinema can look like in the near future.
The story follows two young boys who live on an Indian reservation in Wisconsin. Young Makwa (Phoenix Wilson) is abused by his father at home and is bullied at school. Young Teddo (Julian Gopal) , his cousin, is the only person who cares about Makwa. One day after school, one of the boys kills a fellow classmate and together, they hide the evidence. The story picks up thirty one years later with both boys grown up. Adult Makwa (Michael Greyeyes) has become a successful businessman living in California and has changed his name to Michael. Adult Teddo (Chaske Spencer) has had a hard life. He was recently released from prison and has been in and out of prison since he was a teenager. Both men have dealt with their shared traumatic experience in different ways, and it has defined who they have become as adults. This is the feature film debut from writer/director Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr., and with this, there is some leeway for a new director to grow.
What makes Wild Indian stand out from other films about grief, loss and trauma is how the story uses a particular traumatic event to show how it affects identity long term. Makwa has used this event to grow and gain power from it, and because of this, it allows him to go up in the world. Teddo on the other hand is so affected by the event in his childhood, that he forever lives in that tragedy and cannot move on from his guilt. This juxtaposition of identity that is shared through trauma is what makes the film a powerful character study. The writing is strong for a first script, but parts of the acting fall short in a character driven story.
The story is character driven, not plot driven. This means that the actor’s performance leads the story in the direction that it is written. This emphasis makes the actor’s' performances crucial to the movie’s success… and it fails (in a small way). The acting by Michael Greyeyes, who stars as adult Mawkwa, is played so flat that it comes off as wooden acting. His performance seems modeled after Javier Bardem's sociopath Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men (2007) with the cold emotionality, but Michael lacks the acting nuance that Bardem has. This leads the character to present more like an impersonation of Anton Chigurh instead of a single acting performance. On the other hand, the character of the adult Teddo, played by Chaske Spencer, is without a doubt, one of the best of 2021 and it is a shame he was not in the film more. He carries remorse on his shoulders throughout the film. There is a feeling of deep regret that is communicated through Chaske’s eyes. It is possible to see years of struggle and pain in his performance alone, and that performance is memorable for how well done it is. What helps Chaske’s acting and even adds some nuance to Makwas character is the well crafted screenplay.
Acting delivery aside, these actors are given the platform to perform because of a well written script by Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr. who understands how to write great dialogue. The definition of great dialogue is that it sounds powerful, but also has to define a character. A character can say something great, but if it does not line up to how a character behaves, then it falls flat. All of the dialogue in the screenplay fits the characters and it sounds great. For example, Makwa cannot take responsibility for his own mistakes, so he places blame on other people. He takes the accolades if something good happens to him, but if he messes up, it is because of someone else. This inability to take responsibility leads to a scene towards the end of the movie where Makwa says, “It’s not my fault Indians are a bunch of liars and narcissists. We’re the descendants of cowards, everyone worthwhile died fighting.” Not only is this a powerful statement, it oozes with hatred. Corbine Jr. knows that what he says does not have to be right, but it has to be true to the character. Makwa can never take responsibility and will even go so far as to blame his own ancestors for the person he has become and the mistakes that he has made. All of this is expressed in two sentences of dialogue.
Variety put Corbine Jr. as one of the ten new directors to watch in 2021. This choice makes sense seeing that there are some moments of cinematic intelligence. Some being the key word because it is seen sparingly in the film. The only example to draw from is an intense choking scene that has loads of subtext that could be read in multiple different ways. It is visual, sonic (the sounds of choking) and metaphorically deep to how the character doing the choking feels emotionally. That one scene holds so much value pertaining to the story and character identity as a whole. This is a sign of a strong creative voice, but it is a shame that there are not that many moments like this one. The film needed more scenes filled with subtext instead of scenes with only some subtext. An example of weaker subtext would be when Teddo talks about his family to his nephew, or when Teddo tosses a ball around with his nephew as well. These scenes do have subtext of how important the younger generation is to Teddo, but they are not filled with subtext. Due to the lack of really compact scenes, the film becomes slowly paced and the hour and a half run time drags a bit. In a film with a short run time, writing economy requires a scene to be chock full of information. Corbine Jr. understands how to write a good scene, he just needed to have more of them in the film.
In closing, Corbine Jr. has crafted a strong directorial debut and has done so with the knowledge that what he has written is solely based off of his own experience as a Native American, adding a voice that has been neglected in mainstream cinema since its very foundation. In a piece written by Corbine in Variety he says,
“I never gave a second thought as to whether I was writing about a community that didn’t have an established perspective in cinema, or if I was saddled with a responsibility to draw a positive depiction of Native people; I was just writing a story set in my world, using the language that I love. Yet, some of the reception by non-Native audiences has been framed this way, assuming that the function of any cinematic work by a filmmaker from a specific background was to serve as a promotion of that community to the dominant culture, rather than a piece of art for its own community.”
This specific quote really captures the importance of Wild Indian. It is not just about representation, it is about sharing a story with an audience based on a world view that is wholly original. Corbine Jr. is on the right track as a filmmaker and with more experience and cinematic sensibilities, he can go on to craft authentic stories that have not yet been seen. Cinema has always been about telling a narrative and not pushing a narrative. Wild Indian is the first step in a filmography that is about independence and originality in voice. More films need to be made like this one, and Corbine Jr. can lead the way.