Certificate: 15
Running Time: 115 mins
UK Distributor: Picturehouse Entertainment
WHO’S IN WAR PONY?
Jojo Bapteise Whiting, LaDainian Crazy Thunder, Jesse Schmockel, Sprague Hollander, Wilma Colhof, Iona Red Bear, Woodrow Lone Elk, Ta-Yamni Long Black Cat, Jeremy Corbin Cottier, Ashley Shelton
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Riley Keough and Gina Gammell (directors, writers, producers), Franklin Sioux Bob and Bill Reddy (writers), Val Abel, Sacha Ben Harroche, Bear Damen, Salim El Arja, Bert Hamelinck, Michael Manasseri, Sergey Shtern, Elaine Thomas, Willi White and Ryan Zacarias (producers), Christopher Stracey and Mato Wayuhi (composers), David Gallego (cinematographer), Affonso Gonçalves and Eduardo Serrano (editors)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A pair of young men on a Native American reservation find their paths interlocked with one another…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON WAR PONY?
The history of Native American representation in cinema has been… spotty, to say the least. One simply has to look at past films like The Searchers and even Disney’s original Peter Pan to know how offensively they were portrayed, and it isn’t much better nowadays thanks to similarly slanderous – and occasionally misrepresented by the casting of white actors – depictions in the likes of The Lone Ranger and The Ridiculous Six (the latter of which reportedly saw a mass walkout of Native actors on set over the negative way in which they had been written).
The fact that War Pony, which depicts a more honest look at modern Native life with a predominantly indigenous cast, is directed and co-written by two white people would therefore be a slight cause for concern, but Riley Keough and Gina Gammell ignore the harmful historic stereotypes and focus on a gritty, harsh, and effortlessly bleak slice-of-life drama that, despite occasionally getting lost within itself, is effective enough to work as a contained piece.
Set on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, home to the Oglala Lakota tribe, the film follows two separate stories that occasionally interlock with one another. The first is of Bill (Jojo Bapteise Whiting), a young man who’s always on the hustle with various get-rich-quick schemes, the latest of which involves breeding a poodle and then selling its litter for thousands of dollars apiece, while trying to deal with his responsibilities as a father to two sons from two different women. The second introduces us to twelve-year-old Matho (LaDainian Crazy Thunder), who spends his days causing trouble with his friends, and selling off the hidden meth kept by his absent and abusive father. Their stories soon take uneasy turns, however, when Bill winds up getting a job at a turkey farm owned by a wealthy white couple, which also includes the odd bit of discreet transportation services for Native women that the husband is clearly having adulterous flings with, and when Matho is suddenly kicked out of his home by his father, forcing him to take shelter at a local home where he earns his keep by selling drugs.
According to reports, the genesis of War Pony came from the set of Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, where Keough (a performer in that film) befriended Native American extras Franklin Sioux Bob and Bill Reddy, and later with her friend Gammell developed the resulting feature with Bob and Reddy as co-writers, having apparently helped to greatly inform the debut filmmakers about how life as they saw it truly was. It’s imperative that Keough and Gammell had that further insight in the development phase, since it gives War Pony a very lived-in quality that feels authentic and steadily grounded in reality. The Pine Ridge environment we see here is no different to your average low-income neighbourhood in a particularly grimy red state county, where residents talk street like it’s their primary language and drugs are impossibly easy to come by, even for young children who are seen fiercely smoking and drinking like it’s nobody’s business.
There is such a stark disconnect from the traditional indigenous ways of life – at one point, Bill reveals that he doesn’t even understand the language of his Oglala Lakota ancestors – that it almost seems like Keough and Gammell, and by extension their co-writers Bob and Reddy, are actively suggesting that the influence of Anglo-Saxon originating popular culture has separated the Natives even further from their own identity, and that economic neglect has denied them opportunities to truly make something of themselves. There’s an argument to be made about whether or not the film is disingenuous in its portrayal of this particular reservation as a poverty-stricken hellhole, but for the purposes of the deeper themes that the filmmakers are seemingly attempting to convey, the constant bleakness is an all too necessary tool to help present a miserable portrait of a community that is rarely looked upon at such a close range.
As directors, Keough and Gammell show themselves to be formidable in their abilities to keep the drama contained, with a naturalistic flow that recalls the works of Harmony Korine and Larry Clark, with tinges of Chloé Zhao’s earlier film The Rider. Their efforts are accompanied by David Gallego’s crisp and uncompromising cinematography that brings out the muted hues of the sunlit wastelands, and some impressive lead turns by young actors Jojo Bapteise Whiting and LaDainian Crazy Thunder who, like many of the other Native performers in this movie, had little to no acting experience before being cast. They easily convince as two youngsters who think they’ve got swagger to spare, but are ultimately so naïve to the real-life obstacles in their way that they refuse to act their age in contrasting, but eerily similar, ways
However, there are times when you feel like things are being stretched out wider than they need to be, leaving sections that are aimless and without much indication that they’ll eventually find their footing. For the kind of movie that it is, the 115 minute runtime feels unnecessary, especially with at least 10% of it being comprising of ever so slightly repetitive moments (there’s more than one scene where young Bill is being condescended to by his subconsciously prejudiced white employers, while the even younger Matho is subject to harsh treatment by his guardians at nearly every available opportunity). It also has an ending that is clearly going for something rather upbeat and jovial, even featuring a lively needle-drop for a tune that most Guardians of the Galaxy fans will know very well, but it feels oddly out of character for a movie that has up to this point been relentlessly bleak and uncompromising with its rougher edges, leaving you with a more uncertain feeling than what the film wants to leave things on.
While there’s still a long road to walk down before Native representation can be much more accessible than it currently is, War Pony at least has enough of a sound mind and refreshing honesty to kick-start that journey with a gentle nudge.
SO, TO SUM UP…
War Pony is a noble and refreshingly honest slice-of-life drama that gives solid, if at times questionable, representation for modern Native American communities, although it sometimes feels aimless in its own pacing.
War Pony is now showing in cinemas nationwide
