Thursday, March 15, 2007

Muffins for Granny

Printed in Wawatay News (Jan. 25, 2007)

"The restlessness of an ancient sadness."

When I first heard Nadia McLaren speak these words in an interview I conducted with the artist and filmmaker, the words resonated within me in ways I cannot explain.

Images of my Kokum flowed into my mind. Feelings of helplessness came rushing back as these images consumed me.

I can see Kokum sitting with her hand over her eyes, her head bowed, voice quivering. She was speaking of her time in residential school. She never said much about it. She only spoke of the loneliness. And all who witnessed those moments of weakness felt her restlessness. It told of an ancient sadness.

McLaren – writer, producer, and director of Muffins for Granny – screened her award winning film in Sioux Lookout Dec. 17.

The film is a personal and emotional story of seven Native Elders who were all part of a dark and disturbing chapter in the lives of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples – the residential school experience.

McLaren shares these emotional stories by bringing the viewer on her own personal journey. Her grandmother attended residential school. In the film she calls it “the restlessness of an ancient sadness.”

Those words again.

I can’t speak for everyone in the crowd who watched the film, but as I sat and watched each Elder share their experiences, I couldn’t help but think of my own grandmother and how much she was affected by attending residential school. I’m sure others in the audience thought of their own loved ones. Or perhaps there were others who had attended a residential school and memories of their own experiences came rushing back as a result of watching the film.

For certain, three individuals in attendance were part of the residential school experience. They were also three of the seven Elders featured in the film – Ralph Johnson, Alice Littledeer and Garnet Angeconeb. All are residents of Sioux Lookout.

In talking with Johnson after the screening, he said watching the film for the first time triggered a lot of memories and brought up a lot of buried emotions.

Johnson was first interviewed three years ago for the documentary and he has never had the opportunity to view the film. Although it may have been difficult for Johnson to watch, he said these are stories that need to be told.

“I can’t be scared to share what I went through,” Johnson said of his own memories.

Since coming to terms with what has happened to him, it has been Johnson’s mission to talk about what he had gone through calling it a “sacred responsibility.”

This is the impetus for the documentary. It’s a real look at real people talking about what they had gone through and how it has affected their lives. The stories are personal and raw.

McLaren uses her ability as an artist to provide a unique perspective in filmmaking, interweaving images of nature throughout the film. It’s her first documentary and it has already received recognition winning honourable mention at the imagineNative Film and Media Arts Festival in Toronto and best documentary at the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film and Video Festival.

Rightfully so.

For a first time filmmaker, I was impressed with McLaren’s ability to weave together such a difficult topic. She was able to capture the emotion of the storytellers. The audience, I’m sure, felt that emotion.

I know I did as I sat there afterwards filled with images of my Kokum. Throughout her life, she was always the pillar of our family. But in her later years, before she passed, we caught glimpses of her sadness.

“So lonely,” she’d often say more to herself than to anyone in particular. She often sat in the kitchen table, haunted by memories of being disconnected from the ones she loved most.

All because, for over a hundred years, the government of Canada decided it was mandatory to send Indian children to residential schools.

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