#beans 2020

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

Have you seen Beans (2020)?

Yes

No

Haven’t even heard of this movie

Voting ended onApr 13

[tepkunset]

Native Film Recommendation: ↳ Beans (2020)

Tekehentahkhwa is a young Mohawk girl from Kahnawake, attempting to grow up too fast while combating the chaos and horror of the Canadian police and military violence against the Kanehsatà:ke Resistance.

[ultfreakme]

Me watching Beans for Kiawentiio and hearing a VERY familiar voice and going "no...it can't be"- IT WAS WILLIE JACK AND BEAR AKJSHGDHFDHH D'Pharaoh and Paulina being in it caught me so off guard

[dearly]

Beans (2020) dir Tracey Deer

[mayawithany]

I feel like rewatching Beans...

[sixmonthsandgone]

Beans (2020), dir. Tracey Deer

[filmpenance]

Day 27, 2022 - Beans

Beans (2020) Tracey Deer, 1h 32min [QC Thurs]

“My name is Tekehentahkhwa” - Beans

Tracey Deer’s Beans is a coming-of-age story of a Mohawk girl set in 1990 during the Oka Crisis.

Tekehentahkhwa (Kiawentiio) is 12 years old and she loves art and her younger Ruby, and really admires her mom. That’s why she’s interviewing to go to a private school, because she knows it will make her mom happy. She also kinda wants to go because of the art supplies she saw there, but it’s mostly because of her mom. Mostly.

After repeatedly saying her name to the white lady across the desk, Tekehentahkhwa reassuringly tells her it’s okay to call her “Beans” because everyone else does.

Bean’s aunt Hawi is part of a group protesting the expansion of a golf course in Oka that would destroy a sacred Mohawk site. Beans and family decide to visit Hawi to lift spirits and bring supplies. While on that visit, the local police force instigates a riot that leads to a months long blockade after the army arrives.

The people who were once protesting are now trapped alongside families without access to outside food or supplies. The community quickly pulls together to wait it out and survive this volatile situation. Beans and Ruby have to find a way to fit in, as they’re city kids. Most of the other kids there with them are teens. The worldly April takes a reluctant shine Beans and vows to toughen Beans up for the real world through physical injury and improved fashion.

We watch Beans as she grows, learning that the world is not as sympathetic as she thought; where people don’t act the way they’re supposed to act. People who never met you will hate you. People who are supposed to protect you will be indifferent or try and hurt you[i].

It’s a struggle to figure out what the right thing is to do; what is the right kind of Mohawk to be?

The film is beautifully shot, with lots of lovely wide angles to bring the audience into this world – a home thrown into crisis. Light streaming through trees and bright green grass as the girls play. Then fires flickering in the silence of the night that conveys the anxiety of the people on the front line as they await the inevitable racist violence from the locals and the police[ii].  

Kiawentiio who plays Beans captures both the character’s intelligence and naivety as the later changes from experience. Rainbow Dickerson is wonderful as Bean’s mom Lily, a practical yet loving woman.

An affecting and moving film. Recommended.

TRAILER: https://youtu.be/MIlC3zT1gw4

NOTES:

[i] Content Warning: There is sexual assault and the revelation of assault in the film

[ii] Tracey Deer based much of the film on her own experience as a child during the Oka Crisis : https://variety.com/2020/film/spotlight/tracey-deer-beans-toronto-1234767591/

I also would direct you to Alanis Obomsawin’s documentaries Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993) and Rocks at Whiskey Trench (2000)

[bioeco]

Beans, dir. Tracey Deer, 2020

Beans follows the story of Tekehentahkhwa, a young Mohawk girl coming of age through the traumatic events of the 1990 Oka Crisis at Kanesatake, when the Canadian government approved the construction of a golf course and condominiums and destruction of pine forest and a Mohawk burial ground, resulting in a 77-day protest blockade that was ultimately successful in cancelling the construction.