Bones of Crows
“Bones of Crows features a few disability tropes.”
Title: Bones of Crows (2022)
Director: Marie Clements 👩🏽🇨🇦 (Métis-Dene)
Writer: Marie Clements 👩🏽🇨🇦 (Métis-Dene)
Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸
—SPOILERS AHEAD—
Technical: 2/5
Bones of Crows by filmmaker Marie Clements strives to be a cinematic tour de force. Spanning the 1800s to 2009 across Manitoba to Montreal and Toronto, the film follows a Cree woman named Aline Spears (Grace Dove) and her harrowing experiences at residential school in the 1930s. From there, the sprawling story examines the generational trauma caused when 150,000 Indigenous children are forcibly separated from their families and made to undergo government-funded attempts to stamp out Indian culture, an inhumane practice that only ended in Canada in the late ‘90s.
It’s an enormous story to tell and to its detriment, Bones of Crows tries to cram it all into a jolting time-skip format. One moment it’s 1932; then it’s 1968, then the 1970s, then 2009, and soon we’re back to 1955. Throughout these flashbacks, viewers follow the pain and suffering of multiple protagonists—not just Aline, but her sister Perseverance (Alyssa Wapanatâhk) and husband Adam Whallach (Phillip Lewitski). At what feels like a grueling runtime of over two hours, the film collapses under its own ambitions and turns into a slog of history and trauma that neglects to include the crucial moments of joy required to sustain any fight.
Gender: 5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
With Clements behind the camera and Dove in front as Aline, Bones of Crows easily evinces a woman’s worldview. Female relationships abound: a mother’s love for her daughter, the complicated emotions Perseverance has for being left behind as her sister joins the Canadian Air Force, or a nun’s physical abuse of Aline. While none of these bonds are nuanced enough to carry much impact, the sheer breadth of women present in Bones of Crows has this category covered.
Race: 5/5
As a Métis-Dene storyteller, Clements ensures that Bones of Crows has an Indigenous voice behind the camera (and pen). She boasts a long resume in spotlighting First Nations history, seen in plays like The Unnatural and Accidental Women (2000) or films including 2017’s Red Snow. In these works and in Bones of Crows, Clement does the imperative work of earning community buy-in. Partners include organizations like APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network) and Indigenous Screen Office, not to mention the Indigenous artists and actors involved in the making of Bones of Crows.
Unfortunately, so many stakeholders may have led to a film that tries to do too much for too many people. Excess is the name of the game, not least an excess of tragedies as if editors couldn’t bear to leave out a single attack. Suicide, multiple encounters with sexual abuse, and wrenching scenes of forced family separation all take place, often accompanied by tears and screaming.
This is hardly an argument for ignoring the ugly truths of the past. But a more layered depiction of struggle simply hits harder. In PBS’ Molly of Denali, the 13-minute episode of “Grandpa’s Drum” follows a quest to recover the lost heritage of an Alaska Native man: Grandpa Nat (Lorne Cardinal) no longer plays his once beloved drum due to residential school forcing him to renounce—and thus forget—his Indigenous songs. In this children’s cartoon, it’s the empty space that echoes more loudly of loss and harm than any maudlin string orchestra can fill.
Bonus for Religion: +0.50
By setting the film in a Christian institution, Bones of Crows illustrates how the Catholic Church ran most of the residential schools contracted by the Canadian government. In Aline’s story, priests and nuns take on villainous roles as colonists, rapists, and abusers. Crosses hang prominently in hallways and rooms where Aline and Perseverance are imprisoned, hammering home the fact that injustice was trotted out in the name of Christianity. The lesson culminates in a dramatization of the 2009 apology by Pope Francis, used as an opportunity for Aline to look her oppressors in the eye and send them a proverbial mic drop. None of this critique comes with an ounce of subtlety, but it’s certainly important to educate and remind mainstream audiences of the atrocities doled out by the Catholic Church against Indigenous Peoples in Canada.
Deduction for Disability: -0.50
Bones of Crows features a few disability tropes. When Aline’s hand is stomped on by a cruel nun, the loss destroys her ability to play piano—the only thing that brought her joy at residential school. As an adult, she jumps at the chance to have hand surgery done and her awed, grateful reaction at the offer oversimplifies the more complex reality that not all disabled people are chomping at the bit to seek a “miracle cure.” In another example, Perseverance and Adam both struggle with addiction but neither of their battles are remotely explored. Instead, they go down stereotypical paths: Perseverance turns to sex work while Adam becomes an angry, abusive husband.
The strongest cliché we see, however, is the route Adam’s narrative takes after he returns from WWII with facial scarring and a cane. In contrast to his past as an optimistic (and non-disabled) youth, post-war Adam is bitter and suicidal. Movies and television have a long history of discarding disabled characters to deepen the emotional journeys of non-disabled protagonists, and it’s unfortunate that Bones of Crows does just that.
Mediaversity Grade: B 4.00/5
The grand ambitions of Bones of Crows, complete with multiple protagonists and a century’s worth of time periods that unfold through flashbacks and flash-forwards, will be much better suited for its 5-part series set to air on CBC next year. For now, as a feature film, Clement tries to cover too much ground. It’s telling that the film’s final minutes, spent on snippets of interviews from residential school survivors, pack more of a punch than the rest of the melodramatic film combined.
Like Bones of Crows? Try these other titles featuring Indigenous struggle.
Wildhood (2021)
The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson (2021)
Lovecraft Country