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Fascinating if Disorienting Visions at the Place of Ghosts

There is a sequence in At the Place of Ghosts that feels notably disconnected from the personal trauma that is driving the journey of two siblings through the dense woods of Nova Scotia. They run into what appear to be British redcoats from somewhere in the eighteenth century who assault them and debate how best to kill them -only to be rescued by a couple Mikmaq women, who kill the soldiers, and direct them further along their path. Time means nothing in these deep parts of the woods -the pair had earlier seen denizens of an ancient Mikmaq settlement on the shores of a river- but this was a much more concerted, physical interaction. Perhaps it symbolizes the link that colonialism has to even the struggle they face independent of a tangible white presence -it is something rooted in their heritage and thus has a realness and relevance to their current  situation in this territory of spirits.
These are real ghosts that they encounter, but the important ghosts represented in this movie’s title are experiences, and one in particular that we see re-enacted towards the end, that changed and drove apart two young brothers now in need of healing. The film is directed by Canadian Screen Award winner Bretten Hannam of Wildhood who infuses this coming-of-age ghost story with some such broader spiritual ideas as described that have sincere depth and are fascinating to take in; colouring the atmosphere and providing certain curious contexts, though are ultimately not explored to their full potential.
Perhaps it is an even trade-off though, at least for Hannam, in relating what is ultimately a seemingly very personal story. It is about a pair of estranged siblings haunted by trauma in their youth that they must now come together to account for. Mise'l (Blake Alec Miranda) lives in the city (ostensibly Halifax) where they work in a kitchen, while Antle (Forrest Goodluck) still lives on reservation land with his young daughter Grace. The reappearance of a phantom summons Mise'l home and the danger it threatens to pose for Grace prompts both siblings to venture out into the woods to the realm of ghosts, Skite'kmujuekati'k, to confront the demons of their past.
Along the way they encounter both spirits in the vicinity and visions of their past, traversing this space as children, each of which grow in tangibility the nearer to their destination they get. It's a good choice from Hannam that maps out well the atmosphere of this place and its ignorance to temporal laws. They are able to interact subtly with their younger selves, at one point they even cross paths with the spirit of an elder Grace bearing a haunting message for the state of their quest. And it is unclear how much of it we are meant to take on its own terms -particularly the moments with their younger selves are drenched in a lot of symbolism. And tensions that are felt but not much spoken.
The bond between Mise’l and Antle is strong but unspoken, and that is a really well-calibrated choice on the part of both Hannam and their actors. And though it is not itself a fork between them, Mise’l’s queer identity is critically tied into the pain they carry and must confront. Much like Hannam, Mise’l is two-spirit, and the movie touches on how it has both alienated them from the more traditionalist parts of their community, and how they have a firmer grasp of themselves, a confidence and a boldness on the journey that Antle by contrast struggles with. Miranda and Goodluck are both great in this -in fact it is their performances that carry the movie through its more dully ponderous exercises. Each plays well a differing type of repressed emotionality, Miranda's sombreness pairing well with Goodluck's rawness.
These factor into the nebulous encounters and episodes along the way, intriguing in the nature of their manifestations (their mother appears as a figure from another time for instance) speaking to a broadness of cultural and linguistic contexts. Yet apart from their Mikmaq heritage, there's little direct connection there -at least not that Hannam attempts to clarify. At times it feels like they are mere interlopers swept up in the visions rather than the visions being a specific arm of their journey. As such, the much more effective segment of their story is where their joint trauma is directly explored, through both the images of their younger selves and the actual incident itself involving their harrowing father played by Glen Gould. Hannam builds him up like a great movie monster, sewing hints of his presence into various stages of their expedition -such as the phantom appearance of his rusty pick-up truck, flashes to the kids carried along in it with his face largely obscured up to the point it needs to be reckoned with. And of course as the truth of what happened reveals itself, other clues from early in the movie are better understood. Hannam lays the groundwork wonderfully, though even they keep down the precise gravity until the last moment.
The point is not lost, nor is the reckoning itself, though its illustration is in contrast to so much else in the movie, bluntly delivered in an underwhelming fashion -that also implies an attitude in Antle that little else in the movie seems to support. However, elsewhere in the film Hannam is much more artful. There are some lovely moments of visual poetry now and again: the introduction of a fateful crevice, the inverted image of a boat on the water at dusk, and the apparitions turning to leaves -though meant partly as a horror effect- has a dim grace to it of its own. There is some beautiful shooting of scale over the natural wilderness here -the meditative atmosphere of which is clearly a comfort zone for Hannam, who likewise does alright with the film's corners of eeriness.
Yet the movie still doesn't quite gel as it should -the filmmaking and performances and some of the personal drama resonate, but the journey itself ebbs and flows; with some of the imagery and metaphorical visions having an effect that is striking or ominous, other beats leaving no impact at all. Perhaps I am not seeing what I should, the film is arguably made primarily for a Mikmaq audience and doesn't dumb itself down for white audiences to its credit. But I think the gradual pace in concert with limited characterization also drags at times. At the Place of Ghosts is a fascinating piece though, a distinct perspective on the spirit of trauma, its lingering harms, and even some of the connective tissues to broader themes of mythology and colonialism. That it doesn't quite work might be a fluke if anything, and I'm curious to see what any of its creatives are involved with next.

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