The Lost World of Native Americans

THE EXILES (1961)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 

When a lost film is rediscovered, it is always a pleasure, like unearthing a treasure that has only ripened with age. "The Exiles" is a rare treat of a film, a near-documentary expose of Native Americans living in the sordid sections of L.A. in the late 1950's.

By sordid, I do mean seemingly run-down, beaten paths of streets that are often seen at night bathed in neon signs and decorated with cigar shops and bars in every corner. That is not to say that the section of downtown L.A. shown in the film called Bunker Hill is sordid, but it has the look of noirish city streets with no end in sight, especially the tunnel that looks almost uninviting. I am sure that this is all by design since the story, centering on a group of Native Americans who reside in the city to get away from the reservation, seems to indicate a land of no exit, no hope and complete despair wrapped around a liquor bottle.

This group looks like young American adults with shaven faces, pressed shirts, nice convertibles, slicked back hair and an appetite for a night life of uncontrollable boozing, rock and roll music and scoring with women. The film plays like an existentialist version of "American Graffiti" in its evocation of a life with no meaning since these guys have no ambition, no goals. Yet, interestingly, they are aware of their place as dictated by voice-overs - they all sound like guys with a Mike Hammer fixation on an uncaring world. Heck, these Native Americans were exiled by the white man, forced to live in reservations, and now they leave it behind for, in a word, nothing.

One man seems to implicitly lose his patience with the world he lives in. That is Homer, a young, stocky Native American who never seems to get too drunk. He has a brief moment where he receives a letter and a picture from his parents who are still living in a reservation. There is a tinge of sadness to this, as if Homer is realizing there is more to living than drinking and women. That realization may or may not have a lasting impact on him.

Yvonne Williams is Homer's wife, and she is pregnant. She is the only character to express any measure of hope, particularly with her unborn son. She has no communication with Homer whatsoever - he simply waits for her to iron his shirts and fry his pork chops.

Beautifully shot in black-and-white by Erik Daarstad, Robert Kaufman and John Morrill and tinged with much despair and tension, "The Exiles" is a unique and tantalizing picture, a forerunner to films like "Mean Streets" and John Cassevettes films. Though it never got a proper theatrical release in 1961, it can now be placed in the real context of American cinematic equivalents to the French New Wave (just ahead of Cassevettes' own debut, "Shadows"). Stunningly directed by Kent MacKenzie, "The Exiles" has no real conventional narrative thrust - it sort of exists as an observation of lives lost in a city with boundaries that do not allow for freedom as one might ironically find in a reservation. At one point, the wild and unruly group find themselves on a hill (known as Hill X) chanting and beating drums only to be later followed by more fighting, boozing and a near-rape. And the final devastating scene of Yvonne peering through her bedroom window will leave you haunted for days. "The Exiles" is an essential and lasting masterpiece.