User reviews

It has a flaw or two, but this debut feature from Native Canadian Jeff Barnaby is very, very good. Think "Mean Streets" meets "Dance Me Outside" with a little bit of magic realism sprinkled in, and you'll get a sense of how this film works. It's probably the best First Nations film I've seen since "Smoke Signals," back in 1998.

"Rhymes for Young Ghouls" follows the story of Aila, a parent-less teenage girl living on a Mi'kmaq reservation in Canada during the 1970s. To help make ends meet, she sells marijuana with her uncle to the local pot smokers on the reserve. This draws the attention of Popper, a sociopathic federal Native Agent who takes much pleasure in tormenting and beating Mi'kmaq people like Aila and her friends. Nobody can sell marijuana on the reserve unless Popper gets his cut of the profits.

Much of the film plays like a dark visual poem, and the imagery and cinematography are very strong. Barnaby lifts some of his imagery and ideas from Mi'kmaq culture, pop culture, horror movies, and what is probably personal experience from growing up on a reservation himself.

"Rhymes for Young Ghouls" gets a big thumbs up from me. This is an impressive debut feature film, and I look forward to seeing Mr. Barnaby's future projects.

Director/write Jeff Barnaby just kills it in his first feature length movie. Set on a Canadian reservation in the 70s the film follows Aila (Devery Jacobs who is astonishing). After a tragic accident involving her little brother Aila is left essentially parentless. By the time she's 15 she's dealing drugs, though she wears as gas mask to ensure she doesn't get high while she deals. The weed also serves another purpose; to keep from being carted off to a residential school run by priests where abuse is high, Aila pays a fee so that the white cops will ignore her presence.

The movie follows many twists and turns but eventually turns into a heist film. But what a great one it is! The performances are all great but Devery Jacobs turns out to be the real find of the movie. She is astonishing as Aila, a small kid who has been almost completely hardened after being left to fend for herself.

The cinematography by Michel St. Martin is a stunner. Not to spoil anything but there is a fight scene on the beach that is equal parts beauty and gore.

Do yourself a favour and watch this film.

Rhymes for Young Ghouls is a difficult but very important story I believe every Canadian should watch. It poignantly captures the anger of a system that leaves one powerless; it is artful, relentless, and occasionally funny. Harsh reality blends with magical realism as the film explores themes of childhood vs. adulthood, power vs. powerlessness, and forgetting vs. remembering.

As a non-Indigenous viewer I can't speak to how accurately it describes life on a reservation during the time of residential schools, but the daily challenges of the community, terrors of residential schools and relationship with the Indian Agent ring true to so many of the stories shared by elders at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Metis writer Chelsea Vowel writes in "Why Every Canadian Should Watch Rhymes for Young Ghouls" that it "is not just a film. It is a glimpse into something none of us really want to see but must face". I appreciated her review on CBC:

"For me, the familiarity of the events: alcoholism leading to accidental death, suicide, incarceration, poverty, the vulnerability of having only illegal means to keep oneself and one's family safe, the brooding presence of the residential school; all of it evoked a litany of statistics that are all too real in too many indigenous communities.

Even though it is a work of fiction, and some facts were blended for dramatic reasons, every single event portrayed has happened, and is happening in our communities. And this should be what haunts all Canadians.

The fact that this film was set in the 70's, when my parents were young adults on their way to starting our family, affected me in a way I could have never expected. It was too close for comfort. I was born in that decade. This is far from being ancient history.

The absolute power of the Indian agent highlighted in this film at first seems implausible. That is, until you learn about the history of the Indian Act. The power of the Indian agent to withhold rations and blankets, resulting in the deaths of indigenous people in the late 1800's, was not lessened, but merely changed form with every Indian Act amendment, well into the late 20thcentury.

Was there ever an Indian agent this corrupt, this vile, this abusive? Perhaps not in exactly the same way as portrayed in this film, but based on the stories that exist in indigenous communities, this character is not wholly unbelievable. The system created to give power to Indian agents created the perfect opportunity for abuse of that power." (http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/why-every-canadian-should-watch-rhymes-for-young-ghouls-1.2687357)

At times the writing and scene transitions are a little rough, but it seems to work with the rough storyline and the incredible acting more than makes up for it. I would recommend this film to all Canadians- it is neither resoundingly hopeful or hopeless, but a haunting telling of Canada's seldom-told history.

Characters depicted as nothing but unstable, which is odd. I wanted to find the good in them too (compassion, simple etiquette, consciousness) but I haven't. They can be 'just a bunch of savages' to non-natives. The narrative fails to explain the cause of tthe drug-dealing, violence, prostitution, and constant profanity within the community. I already knew that those were the consequences among natives due to residential/day schooling, but I don't know if me not knowing that in the movie is explicable to my autism, which leads to my point of ableist language that is failed tto be addressed within the movie. (A male character says 'that is so f****** retarded. The female one exclaims 'you two are the dumbest Indian since bugs bunny puts on a headdress'-a combo of that and internalized racism. Girl, they're HIGH! I thought you would know that after years of selling weed! I haven't even touched weed and I know that weed causes extreme fatigue over time! Dafuq!)

These people don't even have the common decency to withhold profanity in front of kids! Heck! They even drunk drive with the kids! Why wouldn't they let the kids spend the night somewhere? They're not smart enough to? And what is with the overuse of the F word? They rot my brain by just cussing too much. I know everyone isn't perfect, but all of them are the crack of the barrel! And they had to be extra by throwing that random Wendigo tale in just to make me even more disgusted with the movie!

I'm African American. I lived in the 'ghettos', but the last thing I want is us to be depicted as nothing and nothing but extreme (unwise) caricatures (like this movie does to Amerindians). I'm not a child but there are too many G/PG movies that address native American issues in an apparently Eurocentric or colonist mindset. The movie could have been the exception that is appropriate for EVERYONE at ANY AGE to understand. But no; I guess there is a very foolish saying 'you can't explain your reality to a child.' Says who!

I've always been a fan of stories about Native American life. Doesn't mean all the stories I read or watch end up being good.

This is a good one. Also, as a citizen of the USA, it is a little odd to watch one regarding abuse and racism against Indians by the British via "Queen's Laws" in Canada instead of the USA, since most of the western world prefers to pretend only whites in the USA abused minorities.

But beyond a reminder of just how recently people were torturing and destroying the lives of a darker skinned people, this story goes into the family relationships and survival techniques in a world which offered few options for those things which keep us human.

The last Mi'kmaq reservation film I watched was the fairly good, 'BLOOD QUANTUM', which also starred A. D. Jacobs. I never got to see this when it was released and looked forward to watching it. I was half way through it by which time I was absolutely bored stiff.

The main bad points of this drab-fest were the overuse of foul mouthed language (which I am sick to death of in modern day films), the atrocious lackluster deliverance of any decent acting skills and, a collective mishmash of internal stories that have no information background that links them all together. It has most of the main cast just meandering through the film either wasted on Marijuana or drunk as skunks, thus leaving no thread of a build up to a supposed revenge finale' or even payback.

It lacks anything of tense interest and feels very much like its a film students amateur offering as a first year test piece.

I have always had a huge interest in the history and stories of the Indian tribal nations and, have always enjoyed all that I have been able to watch/see. Alas however this just bored me and is the first negative Indian natives/nations film that I have spoken badly about!