"Beans" 2020
#movie #indigenous #native #Beans #BeansTheMovie
Hello, dear friends!
I just finished watching the movie "Beans" (2020) and I decided to write a post. It's become a tradition to share a short post whenever I've seen a movie so that I can introduce it to you and hopefully show you why you should consider giving it a chance.
The movie was shot in 2019 and is directed by Tracey Deer. It is based on a real story, on the memories of Tracey Deer herself.
The movie was named after the protagonist of the movie - a twelve-year-old girl on the verge of entering adolescence. Tekehentahkhwa, nicknamed "Beans", lives with her mother, father and younger sister in the year 1990 in Canada. She is preparing to enter a prestigious school the next school year and is interested in Arts and Crafts, wanting to be an Artist as she states at the beginning of the movie. But everything changes with the Oka Crisis - a real historical event for Canadians.
From what I've learnt from the movie, the Oka Crisis lasted 75 days. It began because of people wanting to build a golf course over burial places of an Indigenous Tribe. This caused a racial conflict between the French-Canadians and the Indigenous. Such a conflict that the tribe could not leave the reservation to purchase necessities and at one point all women and children were sent away for their safety in the movie.
This movie isn't just about a historical event. It's through the eyes of a preteen girl who comes of age. This movie could be easily on a list of movies, such as "Thirteen" and "Augusta, Gone", but the grand difference is the attitude of the adults. While Tracy Freeland from Thirteen does not have a parent figure she can go to (her mother is a recovering addict who has to work hard to provide for the family and her father has a new wife and a new baby) and Augusta's mother from "Augusta, Gone" is unsure how to handle everything that is happening to her child, none of that happens to Beans. Beans is growing up in a stable household, with loving, but strict parents, especially her mother. Beans attempts to rebel and to grow up fast and in the end, the experiences (from learning how to fight and trying an alcoholic drink to witnessing the protests) make her stronger but don't break her. She is surrounded by people who genuinely care about her well-being. Even April, her new friend who teaches her how to fight, at one point begins to tell her that Beans is too young to be doing all of the things she's been doing for the past weeks.
The movie is another example of how children copy the behavior of the adults around them. Throughout the movie Beans sees violence and hears racial slurs and cussing so it's no wonder that she begins to do the same. Children are influenced by their environment.
"Beans" as a movie reminds me of the coming-of-age stories during the COVID-19 pandemic that we may or may not see in the cinema and in literature in the near future. I imagine there will be more coming-of-age storylines dealing with historical context. It seems that "Beans" is the first of them all.
Trailer for the movie can be found here: https://youtu.be/ItjJduXxWAM
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