The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019, Canada/Norway, Kathleen Hepburn / Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers)

In reference to the cinema of 2019, Girish wrote: "I’ve seen no better new film this year than the Canadian drama The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open, directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn." 

Almost a year later, I emphatically second Girish's words. I have not seen a better film this year than The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open. Had I seen this last year, it would have definitely been competing with Zacharias Kunuk's One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk for my favourite film of 2019. However, I am delighted to have seen this film in 2020 because the global pause in cinema allowed me the time and space to fully appreciate this film.

The technical aspects of the film are excellent and pure immersive cinema. But it is the film’s treatment and perspective that stood out. As Girish points out:

“We well know how the history of cinema has time and again subordinated and short-changed women’s experiences at the expense of men’s stories. This is an injustice that is only multiplied in the case of Indigenous women. Even on that score alone, The Body Remembers is an invaluable work because its protagonists (and players) are both First Nations women.”

The film goes beyond the conventional newspaper articles about abuse. Majority of those articles don’t give a voice to the victim or properly cover their story but instead reduce things to a statistic (an exception being Robyn Doolittle’s Unfounded series). This is where Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers’ film stands out. By depicting events in real time, and keeping the aggressor off-screen, they highlight abuse from the everyday complex decisions that impact people trapped in such relationships. How does one decide enough is enough? How does help arrive? And if one decides they want to change things, who do they turn to, what are the steps they need to take? Cinema never covers such questions. Instead, we get films that either focus on the violence or revenge/redemption. Real life is hardly tidy when it comes to dealing with this complex issue.

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open is an essential film that deserves to be seen as many people as possible.