Port Townsend Film Festival 2008

It took nearly 50 years, but an important piece of film is finally getting its first commercial run, according to the New York Post. “The Exiles” was shown first at the 1961 Venice Film Festival and two other festival where it won praise, but the film languished before an indifferent distribution system and was never picked up, surviving only in a low-quality 16mm print. Now restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and promoted by a savvy distributor, the film will play in selected theatres (including the Uptown) throughout the country this fall before being released on DVD.

“The Exiles” presents one of the most honest portrayals of contemporary Native American life ever put to film, following three residents of LA’s working-class Bunker Hill neighborhood from Friday evening into Saturday morning. The film, as described by Nel Murray, “accentuates the fuzzy neon of bars and liquor stores, and moves to the rumble of the garage-rock band, The Revels. The three men roam from markets to parties, taking turns narrating, describing their boredom with the routine, and how much they miss the open spaces and sedate pace of the reservation. They manhandle their women, get into fights, and seem to go out of their way to avoid paying a check. But (director) Kent MacKenzie poeticizes their lapses, and lets the wandering and carousing culminate in a haunting climactic scene, in which dozens of Native Americans gather on a hill overlooking LA after the bars close, to beat drums and drink until they fall into an ecstatic stupor.”

Poet and novelist Sherman Alexie, who grew up on the reservation and now lives in Seattle, will present the film and discuss its pertinence to the Native American experience.

Print Source: Milestone Films
Email: milefilms@gmail.com