Tana (Lily Gladstone) takes a cross-country trip in her late grandmother’s Cadillac in The Unknown Country. (Photo courtesy of Music Box Films)
By Richard Ades
Opening this weekend are two indie films that have more in common than you might think.
The Unknown Country, a drama by first-time director Morrisa Maltz, is about a cross-country trip taken by a grieving Native American woman. North Circular, an Irish documentary written and directed by Luke McManus, is described as “a musical trip through Dublin’s inner city.”
What unites the flicks is their willingness to digress in the presence of strong personalities. In each case, this is a mixed blessing.
The Unknown Country ostensibly focuses on Tana (Lily Gladstone), who takes time to travel to a family wedding in South Dakota even though she just lost her beloved grandmother. She then drives her granny’s Cadillac to Texas in a trek that ends at a landmark once visited by the dearly departed.
Co-written by director Maltz and cast members Gladstone and Lainey Bearkiller Shangreaux, the film is primarily about Tana’s attempt to come to terms with her loss. However, Tana herself ends up being overshadowed by a series of strong peripheral characters she meets along the road. Among others, there’s a waitress who lives for her cats, a bride and groom who feel they were destined to be together, and an elderly woman who comes to life on the dance floor.
Most of these characters are real people simply playing themselves, making the flick an adventurous blend of fiction and fact. Each of them is interesting, as are several sights Tana sees along the way, including a Native American wedding, a small-town winter festival and a brightly lit Dallas dance club.
The only problem is that we don’t get to know protagonist Tana as well as the people she meets, making the film a bit less than the sum of its very worthwhile parts.
Holding forth at Dublin’s Cobblestone Pub in a scene from North Circular are (from left): folk singers John Francis Flynn, Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, Killian O’Donnell and Lisa O’Neill. (Photo courtesy of Lightdox)
In a similar way, North Circular spends much of its time introducing us to people who live near the titular roadway, which winds around some of the poorer sections of Dublin. One of the first is an army veteran who plays the bagpipes for military ceremonies and complains that the younger generation shows little interest in learning the traditional instrument. Yes, it’s a shame, but his story comes across as unnecessary digression.
Fortunately, most of the other interviewees can speak more directly to the film’s subject, which is the neighborhood’s struggles with poverty and encroaching gentrification. And several of them do more than speak—they sing about their losses and grievances, often delivering a cappella laments to a silent audience. The sum total is a memorable trip to a side of Ireland’s capital that is never experienced by the average tourist.
Besides their plethora of minor characters, the two films have one other thing in common: striking cinematography. Andrew Jajek’s images in The Unknown Country are engrossing whether they’re showing quiet human interactions or majestic landscapes such as South Dakota’s Badlands and Texas’s Big Bend National Park. And North Circular’s black-and-white images combine with its somber folk tunes to create what at times amounts to cinematic poetry.
Rating for each film: 3½ stars (out of 5)
The Unknown Country opens July 28 at the Quad Cinema in New York City and the Nuart in Los Angeles, and will open at additional theaters across the country in the following weeks. North Circular opens July 28 at DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema in New York City.
Reel Time With Richard Ades 