Stellar: A Love Story and a Love Letter to the Land
By Liz Braun
Rating: B-plus
Anishinaabe filmmaker Darlene Naponse sets an Indigenous romance against an apocalyptic storm in Stellar, a remarkable love letter to the land and the people.
The feature, Naponse’s fourth (and a feature at TIFF 2022), is based on her short story of the same name. It unfolds almost like a fairy-tale or a dream, as the story of a man and a woman who meet in a bar is interspersed with shots of fantastic natural vistas — green forests, blue skies, rushing rivers.
He and She (Braeden Clarke and Elle-Maija Tailfeathers) forge a surrealism-based relationship in Stellar.
She (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) and He (Braeden Clarke) sit in the same dive bar somewhere in Northern Ontario. There is an immediate, if subtle, attraction. He walks over to the jukebox … and we are suddenly somewhere else entirely, watching from high above as the camera soars over vast expanses of Canadian forest wilderness.
Back in the bar, all is peaceful, although a magic ‘window’ on the world shows a storm is brewing, with spectacular thunder and lightning.
The bartender (Rossif Sutherland) looks intently at his phone and wonders why there was no storm warning, the first of many sly jokes and observations about how others relate to nature.
Some of the observations are visual; Naponse inserts the odd image of urban blight and industrial pollution into the mix, sometimes juxtaposing the beauty and the ruin, as with aerial shots of massive industrial hellscapes at night — framed by the extraordinary beauty of the Northern Lights.
Over the evening, He and She talk about their personal histories, sometimes speaking Ojibwe, sometimes English. They trade stories of love, loss and family, and both express their yearning for the land where they grew up.
A few people come into the bar, most panicking over the storm. Each visitor adds to the illustration of a history of colonization and ongoing trauma.
For example, R.H. Thomson makes a brief appearance as a professor who has an exchange with the lovers about education and the Indigenous people. It’s only a sentence or two, but it is profoundly distressing.
He and She prefer to talk about what they have in common, slowly growing closer as the evening unfolds. Magic continues around them: Elders suddenly appear, young women from the reservation turn up in regalia outside the window and wave, fires rage, huge fish swim past.
No matter how wild the storm gets, He and She remain sheltered in a cocoon of love and resilience.
The visual dazzle of Stellar leaves a viewer feeling as if they got to share fragments of memory with He and She. The film is an intriguing love story, and it’s also instructive in a way.
A heartbreaking way, at that.
CLICK HERE to watch Bonnie Laufer’s interview with Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.
Stellar. Written and directed by Darlene Naponse. Starring Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Braeden Clarke and Rossif Sutherland. In theatres starting Friday, September 22 at the Scotiabank, Toronto; Cineplex McGillivray, Winnipeg; Cineplex International Village, Vancouver; The Vic, Victoria; The Roxy, Saskatoon; and Sudbury Indie Cinema, Sudbury.