The Exiles

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source: The Exiles

This was one of the first films to deal with the contemporary lives of Native Americans. It's still one of the very few pieces to deal with the Native urban diaspora, in this case in the no-longer existing LA neighborhood of Bunker Hill, in 1961. More broadly, "Exiles" is a film about displacement, and finding oneself in a state of displacement, of having one's truest self be the displaced self. It focuses on a young, married couple who hardly see each other. The husband is out cavorting and fighting with other young quasi- hooligans. The wife is mostly alone, or abandoned at the cinema. The only scene where we sense that she is bonding with anybody is when she is in bed, in an officially asexual way, with a girlfriend. As an empathetic depiction of the alienation that occurs when people are divorced from their (essentially extinct) culture, one cannot help but admire the film. Yet, I was left with the troubling sense that its depiction of characters driven to cling to each other based on the most basic similarities, such as tribe,race, and, perhaps most importantly in the eyes of the filmmakers, gender, was decidedly heteronormative. I wouldn't go so far as to call the film homophobic. The only brazenly gay characters, a couple of dudes dancing in a "straight" bar, are depicted in a neutral light. Yet, the isolation of man from woman, and "debauched" same-sex mingling are depicted as the prime symptoms of alienation under colonialism and capitalism. This attitude was all too common amid leftists in the era that the film was made. For contemporary viewers, perhaps the most rewarding thing about The Exiles is its luscious black and white cinematography of the now destroyed Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles. As a documentary extra on the DVD further attests, Bunker Hill was a dynamic, multinational district that was home to immigrant families and retired professionals. Soon after this movie was completed, the neighborhood was bulldozed in an attempt to "improve" LA. In this way, the film seems like a depiction of two fallen cultures: the exiles of crushed Native American culture inhabiting an urban landscape that is itself now only a celluloid ghost.

I found this documentary film in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, I read more about it and it certainly sounded interesting enough, I was hoping the book placement would be deserved. Basically this film chronicles the lives of a group of twenty-something Native Americans, or "urban Indians" during a night out in Los Angeles. Yvonne Williams is pregnant and comments on her life and dreams, she does simple things such as shopping and cooking, while her husband Homer Nish goes out with friends to go drinking and gambling, during the night the men pick up women and have fights. Also starring Tom Reynolds, Rico Rodriguez, Clifford Ray Sam, Clydean Parker and Mary Donahue. The cast playing themselves are alright, you can tell however that many of the scenes are staged and scripted a little, but I suppose it makes it more interesting, all in all it's not a film I'd see again, it is I suppose a reasonable documentary. Okay, worth seeing once at least!

The Exiles feels like a simple movie by today's standards, but was probably a shock to the system back in 1961, for those who saw it. It really blurs the line between documentary and drama, and that's probably the thing I liked the most about it. There are interview snippets played throughout from genuine interviews, combined with a simple story that looks and is paced like a fictional movie. I think the interviewees essentially play themselves, though, and the film is really just about the lives of a group of young Native Americans and their experience living in Los Angeles, outside of the reservations they grew up in. That part still feels quite unique, because you really don't get a lot of movies about Indigenous Americans specifically from their point of view. At worst, they're 2-dimensional enemies in westerns who are portrayed as nothing more than an obstacle, and unfortunately, that was most of their on-screen depictions for a while. So I think that's where this film has the most value, especially when you consider how those far less sensitive westerns were still in fashion in the early 1960s. It's historically valuable, and I think the documentary + drama hybrid nature of it all makes it stand out, too. It's otherwise not a particularly exciting or gripping movie, but it's definitely solid, and certainly an interesting watch (enough so that it's included on the 1001 Movies You Must Watch Before You Die list).

A belated attempt at an American neorealism or rather peaceful protest against the chintz and artifice of Hollywood with a document of the down and out who the movies were never about, either way this film about a group of young indians eking out a living in downtown Los Angeles is a rare artifact and an amazing find. The lives; equal parts mundane and exciting, wearily enthusiastic at the prospect of another night where nothing but time flies and the same people are bolted down in the same bar stools. Beer bottles change hands over cheap formica counters, people dance, look around bored, smile at looking and being looked, saunter and stroll around aimless. During most of this the woman is back in a movie theater catching a late-night show. At some point the lights come up and intermission music plays from the speakers as sleepy patrons stretch and look around with drowsy eyes; it's that kind of movie. The moments no self-respecting Hollywood movie would bore its audience with, here strung up to see what kind of life they make up. But most importantly, what precious, valuable poem about a Los Angeles that is no more. Not the Los Angeles imagined by Hollywood, the movie version as a fantastical den of iniquity where sultry femme fatales seduced schmucks in Spanish-style mansions. The real deal, where people lived. Cinema verite as it were, purporting the revelation of some truth in turn. What truth here is all in the image. We can cobble together a view of the historic past but never before the invention of the camera lens did we have the actual thing rich with so much texture and detail, the magical contradiction of living ghosts (people or places). Come to this not to be a told a story about these people. Ordinary anxieties of the displaced the same as everywhere else, the young and restless with too much time. Come to this to inhabit for a while, to sit around and listen. Compare with what LA we are thrown into 30 years later in Falling Down. In the extras of the pristine restoration conducted by the UCLA, we find a 1956 student short about Bunker Hill, the neighborhood depicted. It's perhaps even better than the actual film. Interviewed are actual residents as we see footage of day-to-day lives, old men all about to be swept aside with their old world. They like to watch the public works constructed in the area, the ones will eventually push them out.

The premise is simple-we follow a group of young, modern day Native American men and women in Los Angeles over 24 hours. We experience their daily rituals, conflicts, and pleasures, and, for the most part, I found this rather simple film to be highly interesting. Although it remains virtually plot less throughout, there are some moments of conflict and surprising intensity that save it from being "boring" or overly mundane. The tragedies as well as the comedies of life are explored, as personalities, feelings, and opinions are revealed and studied. The highlights of the film are the dazzlingly beautiful voice over sequences, in which a random character will voice their perspective on their way of life or their friends or their hopes and aspirations, and so on. They transform the every man into a wise and lovable poet. We understand and learn about our characters more and more not only through their subtle actions, but also their words and ways of communicating. However, there are moments of boredom here. I think this movie would have worked better as a lengthy short film that would be, say, 35-40 minutes long. That would be perfect. Either that or a little bit more conflict or humor or just flat out interesting events.

Astonishing slice of cinema verite at a time when young filmmakers were trying to break the Hollywood habit in favor of the real world. The 70 minutes are not entertaining; however, they do fascinate. It's a nighttime of boozing carousal for several young Indian men amid the neon jungle of downtown LA. The camera tracks their aimless wanderings and endless drinking from one seedy venue to the next. It's LA like you've seldom seen it—a down-and-outers look at unvarnished urban decay. The faces too are fascinating, not like the usual Hollywood Indian or crowd scene extras. It's a disturbing look, slow to accumulate until the poignant final shot. These are truly lost people, caught between two incomplete worlds-- the urban jungle of the white man and the captive reservation of the Indian. The men seem to treat most everything as a joke, perhaps a way of denying the dead-end reality of their lives. Ironically, they appear now to be strangers in their own land. It's the young Indian woman Yvonne, however, who's likely to evoke audience sympathy. It's she who dreams (her inner thoughts vocalized in voice-over) of a family and something like a normal life. But, the men in her life are truly lost, so her hopes appear doomed as well. Seeing this document may help viewers better understand the controversial American Indian Movement (AIM) of the 1970's. Apparently, the project spanned several years of interrupted funding. Thus, the film has to be an artistic commitment of a high order on the part of filmmaker MacKenzie. Did he hope for a commercial release. A story and technique like this would seem to hold little promise of that. Did he hope for art house distribution and an appeal to the intelligentsia. Whatever the motivation, he's produced a document of lasting social value, and thanks be to TMC for bringing MacKenzie's achievement to today's audiences

The main good points I'd like to pass on are for the benefit of those not having seen this movie.The older you are the more you may like seeing this on location film from 1961.Even for someone like me not familiar with the film location there will be things to remember,the cars,advertising,beer bottles,etc.Probably the most important point to the movie is that these Native Americans are in a new enviorment having come from the reservation,something different for that time period.The movie reflects their being between two different worlds. One of my favorite parts is when about three Indians enter a bar and greet many there warmly and one at a time. It's worth it to see the movie for the reasons previously mentioned.That being said I couldn't watch this movie without pondering questions..How much of the movie is reality? How much is drama? Is this a Friday night or every night/morning? Where does the money come from? Are they all from the same tribe? Not trying to pass off myself as a Native American expert/I speak the language but from the ones I've known it seems like at times different tribes don't get along.That's why I was wondering if the large groups in the movie were all from the same tribe.Despite the unanswered questions it's an interesting film.

Talking about run boring movies and you look forward for it for many years because it's in these books of great movies and then you see it then there's some new refreshments about the movie industry inside this movie of course we can appreciate them to pull the rest the movies just to pure Barre and then of course the only thing that's going batteries of course the technical improvements on the movie and if we look at that your brother we cannot deny them but is it really worth it I don't think so