Independent filmmaker Steven Lewis Simpson takes on many roles in “Neither Wolf Nor Dog”: He concurrently serves as a director, producer, cinematographer, editor and co-screenwriter, and for some movies, having the director serve in lots of roles advantages the storytelling.
However, on this specific film (which is predicated on co-screenwriter Kent Nerburn’s semi-autobiographical novel of the identical identify), it will have behooved Simpson to seek the advice of others — not simply concerning path, enhancing and writing, however maybe simply to talk to another person earlier than taking over this specific narrative and creating one more Native American story informed by a white man’s lens that advantages completely nobody.
Kent Nerburn (Christopher Sweeney, “Chasing Mavericks”) receives a mysterious name from a Native American lady who says her grandfather requested she name him, and that Newburn wants to return meet with him. Although hesitant (and seemingly offended) about it, Kent drives greater than 400 miles to satisfy with the aged grandfather, Dan (Dave Bald Eagle).
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Dan has learn Kent’s new e-book, an oral historical past of Native American folklore, and desires his story informed the best way somebody with an “education” would inform it. Kent agrees to hear, however as an alternative is taken across the reservation and surrounding areas to see firsthand the injustices the Lakota tribe suffers.
There are many moments the place the filter of a Native American filmmaker would have benefitted the general narrative. For one, Sweeney’s poor efficiency serves up a lot scowling and offended banter that it doesn’t ever really feel like it is a man that anybody, not to mention a deeply prideful elder, would welcome into his house and belief to inform their tales.
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If something, the efficiency turns Kent into some type of fake ally, too bothered to see the ache of the folks and manner too centered on making it recognized that he didn’t slaughter indigenous folks or give them smallpox-ridden blankets. There’s far too many moments the place the script calls for that Kent remind everybody “not all white men” that any look of care or understanding is rapidly wiped away.
But it’s not simply Sweeney’s efficiency that’s missing; there’s virtually no chemistry among the many whole solid, save for 97-year-old Dave Bald Eagle (who died shortly after the movie was accomplished) and Richard Ray Whitman (“Drunktown’s Finest”), who performs Grover, Dan’s youthful buddy. Both males are genuine, perceptive, and have a knack for delivering feeling by small, refined motions and moments of quiet observance. It’s a disgrace that their performances are dragged down by an ensemble that may’t fairly get there as a unit.
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Simpson could have had many shortcomings in some points, however his abilities shine within the cinematography and enhancing. The manner he frames a coffee-shop scene saves a poorly-written trade which, left in worse fingers, may have been a cringe-inducing catastrophe. In that sequence, Simpson shoots solely within the decrease half of the display, opting to deal with the three males’s reactions (or non-reactions, because the case could also be) to the classist and racist trade being uttered simply toes away from them.
What “Neither Wolf Nor Dog” forgets to think about — and this can be as a result of Simpson is from Scotland — is simply how usually white Americans have appropriated, co-opted, and stolen the tales of the Native American folks. There are loads of motion pictures that commemorate white saviors and their triumphs, whereas marginalized folks, akin to that of the Lakota tribe, are lowered to lecturers, magical healers, and showcased solely for his or her ache. That…
