Soleil de nuit

It seems a game of apparences, beginning as a Sci Fi about presumed aselenisation, suggesting confirmation of conspiracy or an easy comedy, defining a delicate situation of property rights, mythology and old stories about moon and finishing in wise manner, reminding entire past of indigineaous comunities from America in relation with White people from XVII century to XIX century.

The result is just beautiful, sure, easy to be defined as pathetic or political or too old fashion or just pure truism.

Fair acting, not bad atmosphere, grace the three languages used and not bad civilisations clash.

In short, good intentioned and nice.

I saw this creative short movie at the Manhattan Short Film Festival screening at our local library. It was in English, French, and an indigenous language. I liked its exploration of the clash of cultures and values. I think the message of acknowledging exploitation and colonialism is important. The acting was great! Every character was believable. The scenery really did look like a moonscape! Parts made me chuckle.

I have never seen a film like this before and I appreciate the creativity and talent of everyone involved in making this short movie. If you get a chance to see it I recommend giving it a chance.

I watched this film as a part of the Manhattan Shorts series over thirty hours ago, and it has stuck with me in the way that the other nine have not. It is a simple film, as is the nature of shorts, but the limitation does not make them incapable of being profound. On the contrary, when your canvas is ten minutes, you have time for one big idea. Thus, the IMDB plot summary pretty much tells everything that happens in the movie.

This type of movie, with an aboriginal Elder (in this case a First Nations Elder) is almost required to (attempt to) imbue the audience with some message. I have spent much of the time since trying to figure out what that message is. Surely a movie would not be made that is a response to the coverage of the Nick Sandmann incident complaining that we give Elders too much authority (in much the same way that families of the "9/11 Victims" were accorded special status to weigh in on how to prosecute the "War on Terror"), and yet I've been unable to come to any other conclusion. Even if such a movie could be made, there is simply no way that it would become part of a festival, so I must be mistaken, but I can't see how. My hypothesis is that the message may be akin to one espoused by W. P. Kinsela in his Silas Ermineskin stories which is to say that there are many First Nations who disagree strongly with what they see as the hypocrisy and corruption of the chiefs/elders.

A final note: if Larissa Corriveau is the mother of Nina Corriveau, which I have no way of knowing, then it would make the latter Metis, and therefore be much more likely to have a strong personal connection to the message. By all means, watch this movie and attempt to decode it. In the end, it was very frustrating for me.