Category Archives: TV/Movies

While looking through the Vancouver International Film Festival program guide, I was very interested in seeing both Cry Rock and Mammalian. Ironically, I discovered they were screening together on Monday, October 11th. They both have similar themes — documentaries looking at the language, life, and culture of people in Canada’s Northern communities. Cry Rock is a documentary about the dying language of Nuxalk, which has only a handful of speakers left in the small community of Bella Coola, BC. Less than 15 Nuxalk language speakers and storytellers remain in Bella Coola, British Columbia. One of these elders is director Banchi Hanuse’s 80-year-old grandmother. Although she entered filmmaking in order to document Nuxalk stories for future generations, and technology now makes it easier than ever to do this, Hanuse finds herself resisting. Instead, she asks whether an electronic recording can capture the true meaning and value of these oral traditions and, more importantly, can it be considered cultural knowledge? In concept, I was very interested in this documentary and unfortunately was left a little disappointed. I was hoping to learn about the traditions, the language, the culture, and most essentially why the language is dying. While the film touched on these subjects I really felt like most questions were left unanswered. Perhaps that was the point, perhaps I’m missing the storytelling and magical nature of the Nuxalk culture. But I just felt like it was more of a poetic film than a documentary. I suppose it was my expectations that led [...]