THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN: Empathy In Real-Time

Even in today’s flourishing market of cinema coming from people and places who have been neglected onscreen up until now, there’s still plenty searching to be done in finding those that will remain. Rich stories are one thing, the unique perspectives are more than welcome, and even after a century, the art of film still has room for revolutionary techniques, but how can they all come together in a single entity that can bring the medium into a new height?

Enter Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, two Canadian filmmakers who in their respective works tackled feminism, queer identity, and the rights of the First Nations people. These two women joined forces to co-write and co-direct a feature about the tense interactions between two indigenous women of opposite class, and in using the medium to its potential, they created a film unlike any other with a similar set of themes. That film is The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open, and it is the definitive answer to the question posed above.

A True Vancouver Story

It’s a simple premise that encompasses the entire runtime: a young pregnant Kwakwaka’wakw woman named Rosie (Violet Nelson, in a barn-burning debut performance) is in distress, standing at a bus stop with no shoes and a bruise on her face after fleeing an abusive lover. Another woman named Áila (Tailfeathers) sees this, and decides to take Rosie to her place, providing her with a change of clothes and the option to go to a safehouse with other victims of domestic abuse. A simple conflict for a hundred-minute runtime, but the place it comes from is more than that.

Like her character Áila, Tailfeathers is of Blackfoot and Sami descent, and also like her character, she had the same experience in real life. “Those few hours with her had a profound impact on me,” Tailfeathers told Independent Magazine. “I never saw her again, and I continue to think of her often. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to honour her story through my work as a filmmaker.” The Body Remembers is essentially her and Hepburn presenting the encounter as it happened in an effort to tell a sad truth about indigenous women in Canada.

This fact is what gives the film the advantage of feeling unlike any other drama possessing such subject matter. Everything is steeped in aching realism that never feels exploitative or hokey, focusing on conversation and subtle reactions. Even down to its final moments, which would be the ultimate litmus test for its audience, there are no traditional answers because the life we see, and the one we live, doesn’t have them ready.

We can sympathize with Rosie, and hope that her situation has the chance to be changed, but then we’re exposed to her reacting with hostility towards Áila. First impression would have one wonder why she’s turning down help, but considering the harsh history of forced assimilation of Native Americans, it’s not unjustified when this Native woman born into middle-class is offering help. She’ll never understand the struggles of the lower-class, and Rosie won’t hesitate to remind her, leading to a powerful scene within the back of a taxi.

Through the initial frustrations, the film is in fact teaching us the complexities of everything from reactions to domestic abuse, class difference, and the lingering effects of colonialism in a nation that claims to look out for their indigenous people, yet has the largest number of missing and murdered Native women.

The Power of the Long Take

Most remarkable about The Body Remembers is how it unfolds in real-time, starting during a late afternoon and ending in the evening. Not only that, but excluding a prologue to introduce the characters, it’s filmed to appear as an unbroken take for over ninety minutes.

It shares a space with Alfred Hitchc*ck‘s classic bottle thriller Rope, which was paced and shot the same way. Since then, the long take has become something of a staple in directorial one-upmanship, with every filmmaker tackling the idea of letting the camera run for different purposes. Orson Welles used a tracking shot in Touch of Evil to thicken the tension of a ticking bomb. Andrei Tarkovsky used them extensively to portray the passing of time. Alexander Sokurov used a 99-minute long take (with no cuts) to traverse three centuries of Russian history in Russian Ark.

Recent years have given us our fair share of one-shot films, both genuine and edited. It was this year where critics sang the praises of Bi Gan‘s Long Day’s Journey into Night and its fifty-minute shot in 3D. The technique makes for a good gimmick that gets attention, and makes more perceptive viewers play the game of trying to spot the hidden edits. To say the directors of The Body Remembers may not be interested in garnering attention for this decision is up in the air, but with the unobstructive handheld work of cinematographer Norm Li, almost reminiscent of the Dardenne brothers, it proves to be a decision that couldn’t have been realized any other way.

Not only are we seeing this authentic dramatization of a stressful moment, but we’re an unseen third party that watches it all, and hones in on the quiet moments of this sorrowful two-hander. From the extended forced conversation in Áila’s apartment, to Rosie telling a cabbie that she’s taking her “sister” Áila to rehab, we weave back and forth between the women to gauge their feelings until we reach a poignant conclusion that may not be satisfying, but ultimately rewarding. The one-take appearance keeps us attached, and manages to make the film feel shorter than it is, for what it’s worth with such a tough turn of events.

The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open: Conclusion

This review began wondering where else the art of film can go with all its new tech and voices. There’s little doubt that the medium would flourish well into the next century, and go on to inspire and influence the next great artists to keep setting the bar. Hepburn and Tailfeathers just added their names to that bill, and even if what they produced goes under the radar, it will be a diamond that’s worth seeking out to see how powerful a movie can be, and what justifies them as what Roger Ebert called “empathy machines.” As poetic as its title, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open cannot be understated for its power and must not be erased from the conversation.

Any other real-time/one take movies that you’d recommend? Just how is cinema progressing more now than it ever has before? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

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