TIFF 2020: Beans
tiff 2020Tracey Deer’s debut feature film Beans, inspired by true events and the director’s own experiences, is a wonderful coming-of-age movie set against the backdrop of the 1990 Oka Crisis. For those unfamiliar, the Oka Crisis was the first well-publicised clash between First Nations and the Canadian Government. A violation of land claims, a golf course was built in Oka, Quebec, on disputed Mohawk land and was to be expanded into a Mohawk burial ground, resulting in protests from Mohawk land defenders and a 78-day stand-off.
Beans retells the story of the Oka Crisis from the perspective of a young Mohawk girl affectionately called Beans (Kiawentiio) by her family. The top of her class, Beans’ mother (Rainbow Dickerson) wants her daughter to attend Queen Heights Academy, an elite, mostly white school, at the promise of opportunity, while her father (Joel Montgrand) worries that going to this school will cause Beans to disconnect from her Indigenous roots. This pull between two cultures swells with the beginning of the Oka Crisis; school becomes the least of the family’s worries as they deal with the events.
Beans’ father becomes a land defender, and his family joins him at the frontlines. This is the first time that Beans is able to interact with older Mohawk teenagers without supervision, and the catalyst of Beans’ coming-of-age story. Beans quickly meets April (Paulina Alexis), an intimidating older girl who takes Beans under her wing. Along with being caught between Indigenous and white worlds, Beans also finds herself caught between girlhood and adulthood. April teaches Beans that suppressing pain makes you tough. They drink alcohol and they flirt with boys. Beans often feels uncomfortable but has the need to prove herself, going along with certain events due to peer pressure.
Beans uses conventional coming-of-age tropes but, because the story is about an Indigenous girl, it feels refreshing. Rarely do women of colour get to see their childhoods and the act of growing up on screen, so these tropes don’t feel overused. And most white coming-of-age stories aren’t set against a land claims crisis, with Quebecois adults spitting on little Indigenous kids and spouting racist rhetoric. There are points where the events of Beans become incredibly unsettling; your heart can’t help but ache as the audience witnesses the pain Beans and her community are undergoing. But luckily, the film also offers some light-hearted moments. The first time Beans says, ‘Fuck’ she’s alone in her room surrounded by stuffed animals, hand over her mouth and surprised at herself for saying the word.
Beans is Kiawentiio’s debut performance and she proves that she is a shining star. It’s her performance which elevates Beans past a standard coming-of-age story. We see the struggle on her face as Beans is caught between worlds. Once innocent, she acts older the more she is around April and her friends. Kiawentiio pulls this off quite well as Beans still feels like a little girl, no matter her efforts. Beans’ scenes of rebellion are also a standout for Kiawentiio as she screams back her parents and her cops, an all-out unapologetic rage at her situation.
Tracey Deer’s choice of using archival footage from the Oka Crisis, instead of using white actors to re-enact the stand-off scenes, is a unique choice that works perfectly. White actors are used for scenes when Beans and her family are experiencing colonial violence directly, and of course this works and is compelling, but in order to show the racist belief system held by the white residents of Oka, Deer used real people. By using this real-life archival footage, there is no conceivable way that anyone watching Beans can deny how hateful Oka residents were regarding the situation. Spouting racial slurs against the Mohawk people, claiming they all deserve to die, among countless other horrific atrocities that came out of their Quebecois mouths, is exactly what settlers in Canada need to bear witness to.
Canada is a country built on settler-colonialism, and non-Indigenous residents are often blind to this concept. Indigenous activists have to work too hard to make their fellow Canadians see the pain colonization has caused them from pipelines to land rights to residential schools. With the Wet'suwet'en pipeline protests and the issue surrounding Mi’kmaw fishing rights, Beans is a film that is demanding Canadians to wake up and listen to its First Nations peoples. The first step is education. Canadians need to take the time to learn about Indigenous history, and Beans is the perfect stepping stone to learn about the Oka Crisis. No longer should settlers be allowed to turn a blind eye to the system that benefits them at the expense of Indigenous people, we need to listen to Indigenous people today, yesterday and always.