Titel: Beans from Tracey Deer – Winner of the Crystal Bear for the best feature film of the children’s jury
Beans (Kiawentiio) is the short name of Tekahentahkhwa, an Indigenous girl and her story is set in Canada in 1990 during the so-called Oka Crisis. The Mohawk people, an Indigenous tribe, are resisting the expansion of a golf course on Mohawk land. At the beginning of the story, we see Beans as she is interviewing for a job at an elite school. The odds are in her favor, but then the principal asks about her two career choices she has stated. Beans and her slightly younger sister Ruby (Violah Beauvais), along with their mother, have just arrived at a wooded area where the Mohawk are peacefully demonstrating and maintaining their barricade. The girls are to gather some wood for a fire and for this purpose they roam through the forest, where they also pass through an old Mohawk burial site. Lovingly, they decorate the old gravestones with flowers and remove various golf balls lying around. However, the peace and quiet is broken by gunshots followed by panicked screams and both girls quickly run back to camp. People are running around everywhere, smoke grenades are igniting and shots are being fired again and again. The whole thing is reminiscent of a terrorist attack, but it is the deployment of a police force and the otherwise peaceful Mohawk put up a fight.
Die beiden Kinder suchen in dem Chaos natürlich ihre Mutter und finden diese zur ihrer Erleichterung auch. Gemeinsam reisen die drei dann zurück nach Hause und unterwegs hören sie im Radio von der Aktion und es wird berichtet, das ein Polizist bei dem Einsatz verstorben ist. Von nun an nimmt die Krise ungebremst ihren Lauf und mit dem Polizeieinsatz ist die Lage absolut eskaliert, der Hass der Menschen gegen die Mohawk wächst. Mit Hilfe von Archivmaterial werden dramatische Einblicke in die damalige Situation, darunter auch einige Interviews in denen viele rassistische Äußerungen gegenüber den Indigenen Volk fallen.
Damit die Kinder sich von dem erlebten etwas erholen können, nimmt die Mutter beide Kinder an einem anderen Tag zu einer kleinen Einkaufstour mit, da die Waren vor Ort aufgrund der Barrikaden immer knapper werden. Die Reise erfolgt mittels Boot über das Meer. Aber auch das gut gemeinte Einkaufserlebnis im Supermarkt verläuft anders als erwartet, denn der Einkauf wird ihnen verwehrt, obwohl man sich gut kennt. Mit leeren Händen kehren sie zurück zum Anlegesteg, wo sich bereits eine Menschenmenge versammelt hat, die alles andere als freundlich gesinnt ist. Es wird denunziert, gespuckt und geschupst und das ohne jegliche Rücksicht auf die Kinder. Die Rückreise zur Heimat findet erneut unter Schock statt.
For Beans, these experiences mean a gradual change in her character. Actually, she appears very open-minded, helpful and polite, and even a term like “fuck you” is a taboo for her that she begins to break. She also starts to look for new friends and here she comes in contact with Lily (Rainbow Dickerson), who she sees as a role model. The start of their friendship is a bit bumpy and seems rather superficial at first, but somehow the two come to terms and spend more and more time together, which further changes Beans’ way of thinking or acting. These changes do not go completely unnoticed, as Hank, Lily’s brother, takes a liking to the “new” Beans.
However, the crisis continues to be omnipresent and in the end even all the elderly, children and women are advised to leave the country for the time being. The evacuation takes place in a police escort, but the presence of the police is more apparent than his, because on the way the fugitives are already awaited by Canadians on the side of the road, who sometimes throw stones at the passing cars. The escape quickly turns into a nightmare and Beans finally loses her previous peace and hope. Only in the last minutes of the film, normality slowly returns, because the government has relented.
Conclusion:
Beans is a film that is extremely close and it is based on real events. Already after a few minutes of the film you want to cry about the arrogant and racist behavior towards a people who only wanted to have their rights for a piece of land in which they live. It is a topic that (unfortunately) has not lost its explosiveness, especially now again in the pandemic, where Asians were sometimes denounced because the virus came from Asia.
The film delivers a mixture of currently shot scenes as well as some archive footage from the past, which intensifies the seen very much and allows to understand what once happened.
Actors:
Kiawentiio (Beans, Tekahentahkhwa)
Rainbow Dickerson (Lily)
Violah Beauvais (Ruby)
Paulina Alexis (April)
D’Pharaoh McKay Woon-A-Tai (Hank)
Director:
Tracey Deer
Info about the film:
https://www.berlinale.de/de/programm/programm/detail.html?film_id=202102458
Trailer:
