The Return of Navajo Boy

“The Return of Navajo Boy” [dvd; 2000]

I love how the desert presents itself as one thing but, if you come closer, it can open again and again until you understand that the first view is only a façade and that so much more remains hidden than is ever revealed. At first “The Return of the Navajo Boy” appears to be about what it means to the Cly family to have a silent film, “The Navajo Boy,” brought to them by the son of the Anglo filmmaker. Elsie Mae, the oldest living member of the Cly family, once again sees her grandparents, her father, her mother, and her baby brother who was taken by Christian missionaries. For Elsie Mae, the film is a way to show younger family members their history and traditions. It also contains a healing ceremony for Elsie Mae’s mother who died of lung cancer, one of the diseases that plague this part of Utah's Monument Valley. Thus, for Elsie Mae’s brother Bernie, the film becomes part of a strategy to organize and pressure the government to make just compensation for uranium mining which continues to poison the area’s water and land. Footage from an insufferably smug and patronizing Kerr-Magee promotional film highlights the environmental racism that is far from limited to the heyday of the mines. Then the story twists again and one more layer is revealed as the fate of the lost baby brother is discovered.

[Gem rating: banded onyx, turquoise and obsidian]