Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At The Place of Ghosts): Indigenous Vision Quest + Scary Forest = Hauntingly Good

By Jim Slotek

Rating: B+

Reviewing films at the Toronto International Film Festival, with the frantic schedule that can go with it, often does a disservice to films that require you to sit back and let things sink in.

Don’t get me wrong. At TIFF, I liked Bretten Hannam’s Sk+te'kmujue'katik  (At The Place of Ghosts), a sort-of horror-film about two estranged Mi’kmaw brothers (Blake Alec Miranda and Forrest Goodluck) who are forced to put differences aside and trek through the woods to put a stop to a vengeful ghost that is pursuing them.

But its canoe-paddle pace and seeming randomness of events was sometimes hard to wrap my head around. I liked it, as I say, but I didn’t realize how much until my second viewing.

Forrest Goodluck and Blake Alec Miranda.

On round two (no longer stressed about what film I had to see next and whether I’d be on time), I understood better what Hannam was going for. With its visions and elements of time travel (long-dead familiar faces, colonial soldiers), the harrowing experience of staying true to two-spiritedness, Indigenous lore, spirit animals, etc., and the draining of their energy as they get near the source of their pain, the movie is one big metaphor

It’s hard to fathom how an 81-minute movie that takes considerable time to breathe can have so many ideas stuffed into it. It is definitely a storytelling accomplishment for the young L’nu filmmaker.

The core of the story — a childhood trauma at the hands of their father (Glen Gould) that Mise’l (Miranda) fled to the city to forget, while Antle (Goodluck) stayed behind, submerging the memory — is actually an end-point to a much longer story, one they must understand before they can purge the past.

That past is embodied (if you can say that about a ghost) by a dark entity dressed in country clothes that first appears to Mise’l at his bar workplace, sitting at a table past closing time. As Mise’l approaches, the intruder dissolves into ash, leaving a burn on Mise’l’s arm. For his part, Antle is reluctant to agree that this affects him, until his young daughter is nearly taken by the spectral entity.

Sporadically turning up, as spirits I guess, are their own childhood selves (Skyler Cope as Mise’l and Atuen MacIsaac as Antle), living out the trauma and abuse at the root of their haunted adulthood.

Even back when the bigger picture escaped me, I’d have recommended At the Place of Ghosts for its haunting mood (music by the Indigenous composer Jeremy Dutcher) and equally haunting arboreal scenery shot by cinematographer Guy Godfree). I mean, who doesn’t find a dark forest at least a little scary?

(In an interview with Original-Cin, Miranda and Goodluck commented on how much they appreciated the Native presence behind the camera).

And American Indigenous actors Miranda and Goodluck are just similar enough, and just different enough, to be convincing as siblings, gay and straight.

Their performances anchor the film and give the passing parade of visions a human sounding board that makes At the Place of Ghosts a believable and shared experience.

Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At The Place of Ghosts). Written and directed by Brettan Hannam. Starring Blake Alec Miranda and Forrest Goodluck. In theatres May 8.