Where the Spirit Lives (1991)

This is a movie about residential schools in early North America. Residential schools are essentially schools set up by christian churches in early North America with the sole purpose of purging Native Americans of their language/ heritage/ pride/ what have you. Children were taken from their families and forced to attend these schools wherein they were forced to conform to the European way of life. Many children were severely abused and sadly the last residential school was closed down only 10 or 20 years ago, so this is by no means an issue from the distant past.

I first saw this movie in late elementary school early/ high school (on my own time) and it really opened my eyes. Up until that point I'd enjoyed a much happier view of Native American people, relying more on fiction than anything else. And while fiction is based on fact and there are some very good aboriginal fiction books out there, the one's I read were set in the past and painted a proud, concrete glorification of the culture and didn't really mention the current state of Aboriginals in North America. And in school we don't learn too too much about this aspect of history (history as told by the conquerors I suppose) just that Nunavut was created as a territory solely for the use of the aboriginal people, which is nice, but in elementary school they don't tell you why that step was necessary, or not in much detail anyway.

The story here is about an aboriginal girl who, along with her younger brother, were kidnapped by a white pilot and brought them to a residential school to live. We are given the pg version of the story and more of the abuse is suggested rather than shown, but several reviewers of this movie stated that it is an accurate depiction of residential school life, speaking from their supposed personal experiences. The girl in the movie does end up escaping from the school, but not many children were as lucky as this, and keeping movies like this around is an important step in remembering the wrongs of the past to ensure they never happen again.

The heroine of this film was very strong and resilient and she didn't loose her culture to the one being forced upon her in the residential school. Overall this was very well done.