![]() This documentary, executive produced, co-written, and “lived by” Peter is, in her words, on “personal consequences of being colonized by other nations.” But it’s ultimately a story of endurance and organizing, to ensure that the next generation has a better life. We open on Peter, living in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Arctic Canada, with one of her grandkids putting on her sealskin lawyer’s robe. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that Twice Colonized begins with Aaju Peter, lawyer, activist, and keeper of Inuk cultural traditions, letting her granddaughters try on her clothes. Now streaming in Canada on CBC Gem (and coming to the US via Film Movement) In Danish, English, and Inuktitut with English subtitles I think they both deserved to express more. Lukumuena and Bonsu do well with what they’re given, even if it’s a lot of thousand-yard-stares and hyperventilating. But otherwise GIRL just made me feel like I was hit with an emotional hammer for an hour and a half. That’s especially clear when Fiona, not Grace, helps Ama deal with her first menstrual cycle. The closest I got (aside from bright colors of the character’s clothes, courtesy of Kirsty Holliday’s costume design) was Ama’s relationship with Fiona, a bond that is formative, caring, and - especially in Grace’s eyes - transgressive. I yearned to feel some semblance of warmth from this film as it went along. ![]() In some ways, the titular girl is as much Grace as it is Ama, both being forced to grow (but never quite getting there in the lens of the viewer).Īll this trauma, undercut with very little gentleness or joy (which really only comes in the first and last few minutes of the film), makes for a flat movie with flat protagonists. Nevertheless, Grace pushes them all away, moving from apartment to apartment to avoid making ties with anyone, and to keep Ama from making a similar connection, all in the name of keeping each other safe. (Though I guess it kind of worked for The Wolfpack kids.) I’m not alone in this frustration school social worker Lisa (Ayesha Antoine), building manager Samuel (Danny Sapani), and Ama’s neighbor, classmate, and only friend Fiona (Liana Turner) are all just trying to help. There are so many moments in the film where I was shaking my hands in the air, wondering how Grace came to think she could keep Ama safe by sealing her off from the world in the middle of a city. (Similarly, the viewer is withheld basically any aspect of Grace’s backstory aside from her presumed rape, and it’s unclear where Grace is from and when she and Ama got to Scotland.) She’s has withheld from Ama the knowledge of who her father was and why her body is undergoing the changes of puberty. Grace’s rules for Ama are to stay inside, never open the door for anyone, and to trust nobody. ![]() Grace’s twin coping mechanisms are counting to break out of her traumatic recollections and keeping Ama as locked up as possible, and both are ever-present. I think the intent from debut director (and screenwriter) Adura Onashile was to show a mutual need for one another, but the not-directly-said trauma at the core of her life - Grace’s rape in a clearing at thirteen - is clearly the ultimate driver of Grace, and Ama just has to follow along. The only time Grace leaves is to work her cleaning shift at a mall, Ama secretly gazes through binoculars at the complex. ![]() They sleep in the same bed and bathe in the same tub, and they seem to be one of the few Black families in their apartment complex. More than anything else, GIRL is an on-and-off panic attack for just under 90 minutes, with characters who never quite become three-dimensional.Īma is eleven years old, Grace twenty-five, and they are basically each other’s world. But I didn’t expect the emotional impact on me to be more akin to Uncut Gems in its anxiety-inducing, occasionally bewildering tone. And I was right, to a point it’s a film about a mother (Grace, played by Deborah Lukumuena) and a daughter (Ama, played by Le’Shantey Bonsu) trying to get through life in a an apartment both tiny and at the same time having a lot of stairs in Glasgow. Starring Déborah Lukumuena, Danny Sapani, Le'Shantey Bonsu, and Liana TurnerĪs noted in my preview post, from the clips I saw I expected GIRL to be a sentimental “mother and daughter dealing with adversity” flick. ![]()
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