What if, for instance, we refigure Zhao\u2019s previous three feature films as superhero origin stories, its protagonists forged in adversity. (Think Christopher Nolan\u2019s Batman Begins <\/em>[2005]). In this thought experiment, The Rider <\/em>(2017)\u2019<\/em>s Brady Jandreau becomes \u2018Native Cowboy\u2019 (superpower: horse-whispering), with his rodeo accident akin to Peter Parker\u2019s spider bite. And an imaginary stinger in Nomadland <\/em>features Fern\u2019s white van lifting off that endless thread of American highway into space, with a course set for Linda May\u2019s \u201cEarthship,\u201d whose ecological planet-saving function is hyperbolized to MCU proportions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though it\u2019s been neglected in film critics\u2019 Eternals-<\/em>provoked reconsideration of Zhao\u2019s work, the filmmaker\u2019s debut feature, Songs My Brother Taught Me <\/em>(2015) proves especially amenable to this thought experiment, as well as to an understanding of Zhao\u2019s signature semi-improvisational method (abandoned for <\/em>her MCU entry, obviously) and lyrical style (barely evident in the same). If Eternals <\/em>is Zhao diluted to 5%, Songs <\/em>was Zhao pure strain, unrefined. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a graduate student in NYU\u2019s Tisch School\u2019s Film Program, and admirer of Terrence Malick, Zhao set out to make a film on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. With a paltry budget and no script, Songs My Brother Taught Me <\/em>took four years, in which Zhao got to know the struggles and <\/em>communal power of the Oglala Lakota people. She put together a treatment based on the real lives of tribal members who, in turn, she cast. Discovering the story and revising a script as she went, Zhao turned her camera\u2014with another Tisch grad, Joshua James Richards as cinematographer (he also lensed The Rider <\/em>and Nomadland<\/em>)\u2014to capture hardship and <\/em>beauty, in museum-worthy long shots of vast landscapes and intimate close-ups of characters, and the tenderness between them. Not least of all, Zhao capitalized on the Great Plains\u2019 other-worldly glow at dusk and dawn, developing her trademark obsession with the \u201cmagic hour.\u201d Due in part to the conditions of the shoot, the film feels authentic and lived-in, its pace unrushed, each scene held to imply weighty signification, lightly touched with a melancholy score. In the pacing, too, you can sense Zhao developing her skills as her own film editor, intuitively rhythmic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like The Rider<\/em> (and so many superhero origin stories), Songs <\/em>is a coming-of-age story. Its protagonist Johnny Winters (Johnny Reddy) is a Lakota teenager who dreams of escaping the apparent dead-end of \u201crez life.\u201d He plans to head west to Los Angeles, where his girlfriend Aurelia (Taysha Fuller) will be attending college. Lower stakes than an MCU apocalypse but more real, the question of whether Johnny will leave provides the film\u2019s narrative suspense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s easy to see why he should. \u201cRez life\u201d is tough, and riddled with generational trauma. Alcoholism is endemic even though it is illegal. Residents find plenty of ways to get it, including from Johnny, who delivers it surreptitiously, in order to fund his escape. In this work, he samples too much of his own product, winding up hungover at school, and tramples on another man\u2019s turf, winding up jumped and beaten. His brother Cody (Justin Reddy) is in jail and a dear friend has killed himself. Johnny\u2019s bull-riding, alcoholic father, who had 25 children with nine women, has burned up in a house fire, the smoldering ruins through which his children rummage. Loving but lost, Johnny\u2019s single mother (Irene Bedard) pays more attention to a rotation of male companions than to her kids. (When she finds religion, Cody in the clink tells her, \u201cJust don\u2019t make God another man that you abandon your children for.\u201d) And Johnny\u2019s sweet 11-year-old sister Jashaun (Jashuan St. John), who loves tribal traditions and longs for a powwow dress, is growing up too fast. She learns how to smoke weed and finds herself at an all-too-adult party when her ride\u2014a kind-hearted ex-convict with artistic aspirations\u2014forgets to stay sober. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite all of that, Songs<\/em> argues that there are reasons for Johnny to stay. Certainly, Zhao\u2019s camera is enchanted by the natural surroundings, as suggested above. The Plains are golden, and the Badlands never looked so good. Though tough, these spaces are beautiful, wild and open, where one can be \u201cas free as the wind that blows behind the rain [and] as honest as the horse between [one\u2019s] knees,\u201d Zhao tells us with gorgeous shots of horseback-riding and with \u201cThe Cowboy Prayer\u201d recited by an announcer before a rodeo (albeit with a hint of the irony that would come to structure The Rider<\/em>). Furthermore, these are the natural spaces that connect Johnny to his identity, family, and tribal history, which is one of survival, and therefore a source of pride. This is a lesson he learns from his sister, rather than from one of his many brothers (per the film\u2019s title).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, as a superhero origin story (or any other kind), Songs <\/em>belongs as much to Jashaun as it does to Johnny. Their superpowers are\u00a0 transforming hard, even life-threatening materials into less harmful, even life-affirming ones\u2014not unlike the more literal superpower of Sirse (Gemma Chan) in Eternals<\/em>. In Song<\/em>s\u2019 final moments, Johnny explains in voiceover why he decides to stay: Jashaun needs him and he needs her, particularly her strength in cultural pride, leaning into the wind lest they be blown away, as the tribe elders teach. \u201cShe sees things I don\u2019t,\u201d he says, and the viewer sees Jashaun dancing gleefully among tribe members in a luminescent red powwow dress, her superhero uniform. The final image is of Johnny grabbing a handful of Badlands stone, ground to dust, and throwing it into the air, watching it become one with the magnificent cosmos.\u00a0 “Songs My Brother Taught Me” is now streaming on Hulu<\/a>, Showtime<\/a>, Kanopy<\/a>, and several other streaming services<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/songs2-1024x553.jpg\")
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And just like that, an intersection where Zhao\u2019s universe meets Marvel\u2019s in Eternals: <\/em>the saving qualities of family\/tribe and, relatedly, the proposition that humanity is deeply flawed but inherently redeemable. See, that\u2019s not cynical at all. ![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
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