The film just had its premiere two months ago at the Coolidge Corner
Theatre in Boston, and yesterday it was shown for the first time in CT at
the Pequot's multi-million-dollar Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard - as a
fundraiser for The Nature Conservancy. Its next stop is New York, the
American Indian Museum.
To quote from the review in the Boston Globe "Berger's dedication [is] to
fashioning narratives around what she calls 'unsung people'." As an art
historian Berger took an interest a few years ago in an archaeological dig
in Newfoundland which uncovered a settlement left by 10th century Vikings.
Remains of foodstuffs found in this dig included butternuts. These must have
been brought up by human beings from Maine or Nova Scotia, because they are
not native to the area. If so, there was interaction between europeans and
native americans much further south along the coast. Combining this fact
with material from icelandic sagas,including that of 2 celtic slaves who
were sent out to explore the landscape, Berger created her screenplay. It's
the story of an irish slave in the 10th century who escapes from his Viking
captors on the shores of North America, is rescued by a small band of
woodland coastal native inhabitants, and learns their ways. This hero,
Kilian, although a slave is an educated man, and he writes his experiences
in a journal, hence: Kilian's Chronicle".
The plot is a fictitious romance in which Kilian is paired with a native
american woman named Turtle. His counterpart is a mean Viking named Ivar,
and there is also the leader of the indian band. The sets are said to be so
authentic that they were bought by an indian museum. To add authenticity,
parts of the dialogue are in Passamaquoddy language (with subtitles). The
dialogue, at times overly didactic, likes to dwell on explicit comparisons,
highlighting for us the difference between native american and northern
european values of the times, and the superiority of the former. Says the
Boston Globe reviewer, "'Kilian's Corner is less a story about confrontation
than about communication and the deep bonds of trust and affection formed by
people of different cultures". Also: "Adventure and romance in the NEw
World... appealing, eyeopening, winning...beautiful." The film deals with
"cuture clash and struggler against intolerance".
My sense of the film: Through its fictitious romantic plot, the beautiful
summer scenery, the handsome actors, the film is succesful in engaging the
audience in what, in other respects, is a sincere and professional depiction
of native americans and vikings in the 10th century. The film is quite
engaging, says and does all the right things, and comes off quite well,
expecially when you consider that Pam Berger had nowheres near the resources
that went into "Dances with Wolves", which also deals with a white man taken
in by a native tribe. If one wanted to stress its deficiencies, however,
one would say that (1) only one of the characters (Kilian) is complex enough
to be truly believable: the others are too predictable cardboard-like; (2)
the native americans (portrayed by miscellaneous non-westerners) have been
sanitized to make them attractive (Turtle is your prototypical beautiful
maiden, the native americans, even after battle, always look as clean as a
whistle, and the film shows them in a tropic-like summer setting); (3) the
over-reliance on dialogue to point out cultural differences makes the viewer
sometimes feel as if he or she is in class.
One last comment: the script goes out of its way to make everyone "good" in
the movie. Even "Ivar", the awful Viking, we learn at the end, is the way he
is because he used to be a slave himself, had been badly mistreated, and had
to fight his way to freedom. So this film cannot compete with today's
box-office hits, so many of which seem to be driven almost exclusively by
sex, violence, and the love of evil. In addition, there is no guilt-trip
here: Kilian's Chronicle articulates native american grievances with the
Europeans in an entirely non-confrontational way. So you will not accept and
ejoy Berger's work unless you can tolerate a film that combines
historical interpretation with an essentially romantic outlook,one that
tries to touch mankind's better side.
If any of you see it, let me know what you think.