Time unravels in “Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts),” an occasionally confounding but consistently original and engaging drama about a pair of brothers torn apart by an incident in their youth. Writer/director Bretten Hannam understands that trauma at such an early age has a way of infecting the moment at hand and for Mise’l (Blake Alec Miranda) and his younger brother Antle (Forrest Goodluck), it has led to a practical separation when the former fled to the city as fast as he could from the family home in the wilderness where Antle stayed to raise his family in the intervening years, but the violence they experienced when they were younger has also tainted their view of the world, leading to visions where the past can intermingle with their present. One such vision has led to Mise’l’s return when he’s seen a ghost that’s entered the greasy spoon where he works as a fry cook late one night and bursts into ash upon being asked what it is.
Mise’l seems to already have the answer to some degree, leading him back to his childhood home for the first time in 20 years when the thought is that to prevent the ghost from making a return visit is to back to the scene of the defining event of his life with his brother to put the past to rest. He may not be bothered by ghosts so much if he does, but after destroying his relationship with Antle, he has two fences to mend, not knowing exactly how to in either realm. His quest to find peace isn’t made any easier by the fact that he’s indigenous and two-spirited, never making his sexuality a secret to Antle, but that hasn’t made it any easier for his younger brother to understand. Their shared marginalized status has put up obstacles to reaching a feeling of normalcy when it looks different to them than it does for others and just how different starts to reveal itself when Mise’l and Antle first dip their toe into the forest and find themselves contending with both their personal history and a broader sweep, as it’s not unusual to see colonial soldiers marching around of for that matter, their younger selves.
Hannam may withhold a little too much information from the audience for a bit too long about what the ultimate goal is when both what’s driving Antle and Mise’l starts to frustrate more than intrigue and they would seem wise to turn back, especially when Antle has a young girl Grace to take care of back home. But flattening time into one all-encompassing present is just gripping enough and evocatively expressed as they are helped as much as hurt by what their recall affords them. Eventually, a trip with their father (Glen Gould) starts to come into focus as the root of their discontent, but the forces that have shaped generations are constantly peeking out from behind the trees, with Mise’l and Antle’s responsibility to each other and what they’ve been raised to believe is their burden as men comes to the fore. The film has beautiful cinematography from Guy Godfree that makes the most of its outdoor setting, but the real fresh air comes from an adventurous approach to depicting memory, both getting in the brothers’ way as well as occasionally smoothing their path forward. There may be the supernatural in “Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts),” but what becomes most haunting is all too human.
“Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts)” does not yet have U.S. distribution. It will next screen at the BFI London Film Festival on October 10th at 8:10 pm at BFI Southbank and October 12th at 3:10 pm at the Prince Charles Cinema and Newfest in New York on October 16th at 7:30 pm at the BAM Rose Cinemas.