Songs My Brothers Taught Me

Songs My Brothers Taught Me is a poignant and thought-provoking cinematic journey that aims to uncover the ground realities of the lives of young Native Americans. This 2015 release, directed by Chloé Zhao, stars a well-crafted ensemble of performers led by John Reddy, Jashaun St. John, and Irene Bedard, in a narrative that unwraps like a heartfelt eulogy to childhood and growing up in the striking landscapes of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The film is a deep and impressionistic exploration of the complex familial relationships and silently suffering plights of contemporary Lakota youth in the heartland of America. Its focus drills down to two siblings, Johnny (John Reddy) and Jashaun (Jashaun St. John), who struggle to navigate the contours of their existence amid broken families, alcoholism, compromised economic opportunities, and the haunting echo of their cultural heritage.

John Reddy essays the character of Johnny, an upcoming high school senior who's in two minds about leaving his little sister Jashaun and his troubled mother Lisa (Irene Bedard) behind in the reservation, while he ventures off in pursuit of a more promising life with his girlfriend in Los Angeles. His character offers a nuanced depiction of a young man teetering on the verge of young adulthood, grappling with his gravitational pull to what's familiar and the powerful allure of what lies in the great big unknown.

Starring opposite to him, Jashaun St. John embraces the character of 11-year-old Jashaun with grace and maturity that belies her age. She's an endearing picture of on-the-brink adolescence, subtly exposing through her sensitive portrayal the gravity of the immense gulf that separates the wonder-soaked innocence of her age and the grim realities of her world.

While the film navigates this maze of conflicts and turbulences, it also parses the layers to piece together the portrait of an injured community. Amidst the bareness of opportunities and the grim realities of poverty, the elements of the film also touch upon the looming shadow of the past, the fading echoes of Native American traditions and heritage in a shifting landscape of assimilation and struggle for survival.

However, the charm of this film from Zhao, who later won accolades for Nomadland, lies not in the grandeur of its narrative arcs but in the understated simplicity of its storytelling. Its real triumph is how it ‎presents Pine Ridge, not as a remote and pitifully beleaguered “reservation on the plains,” but as a vibrant, diverse community full of life, love, and laughter, complete with its own sets of unique challenges and victories, as any other place in the world would have.

This sentiment shines through in the screenplay’s committed focus on the lives of its two protagonists, allowing the audience to connect with them not as faces of a grand cause, but as flesh-and-blood individuals who have hopes, dreams, and dilemmas just like anyone else. Here, the director smartly infuses the narrative with an immersive realism that draws us into the world of Johnny and Jashaun, forcing us to empathize with them on a profoundly humanistic level.

Songs My Brothers Taught Me is richly shot by cinematographer Joshua James Richards. His camera paints a visual romance with the wide, desolate South Dakotan plains. Its landscapes form a striking contrast to the intimate, closed world of the protagonists, encapsulating at its helm the film's central theme of desire and fear for the unknown.

Supported by a brilliant sound design, the film resonates with emotionally-charged songs and chants that narrate a beautiful, rhythmic pattern of storytelling. This carefully composed soundtrack embodies the transformative power of music, as songs delicately swing between tradition and modernity, softly cushioning each frame with an inherent sense of continuity and change.

In essence, Songs My Brothers Taught Me is not a film crafted on canvas of grandeur spectacle, but a subtle and profound cinematic sketch highlighting the intricacies of human nature and society. Its honest depiction of life on the Pine Ridge Reservation and a profound understanding of the complexities of the human condition meld together to create a sensitively crafted narrative that remains deeply etched in the viewer's heart long after the final frame has dimmed.