All documentaries about historical and ongoing social evils must balance the historical with the human, and some do this better than others. This balance is Sugar canes greatest strength. Co-directed by filmmaker Emily Kassie and activist Julian Brave NoiseCat, the film follows several characters (including NoiseCat and his father) as they investigate the horrors of the past and present of a particular boarding school, Saint Joseph’s Mission in British Columbia, Canada.
In the residential schools that existed in both Canada and the United States until the end of the 20th century, indigenous children were forced to conform to white, Western ideals. They were mostly run by the Catholic Church and were a breeding ground for all kinds of abuse. Some of these forms of abuse, such as punishing children for speaking their indigenous languages, were an integral part of the schools’ mission. The rampant sexual abuse, like all forms of child abuse by Catholics, was against the teachings of the Church but was possible because it provided opportunities for the perpetrators.
Sugar cane includes some archival footage and recent news reports, particularly about the ongoing discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves near boarding schools, but the focus on individuals allows the film to delve deeply into the traumas caused by the broader history. We see former chief Rick Gilbert confirm through a DNA test that his father was a priest at Saint Joseph’s Mission; NoiseCat and his father Ed read a 1959 newspaper article about Ed being discovered by a janitor near an incinerator; and longtime activist Charlene Belleau discusses the mass suicides of boarding school students, including her uncle. Through these individual stories, a picture emerges of the decades-long and multi-layered institutional failings that enabled these atrocities.
Sugar cane is as harrowing as it is vital. It is a remarkably explicit examination of intergenerational trauma that manages to focus on specific suffering without ignoring the circumstances that led to the violence. R, 107 minutes.
Gene Siskel Film Center
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