Frozen River

Generally I am ambivalent about watching Sundance movies. I find their formulaic tearjerking often has the opposite effect than intended. Frozen River felt quite different from the usual Sundance fare, despite being a gritty, low-budget movie about important social issues.

What surprised me most about the movie was how economical the script was. It had the refinement of a short story, perfectly detailed without overly padding the characters. It left me wanting to know much more about them, rather than merely feeling informed about their "type." The movie deals with issues of race and economic class by showing just how individuals within their race or class can act against stereotype, perhaps from desperation, or perhaps just from uniqueness.

That element of taut characterization was especially apt in the formulation of the Mohawk community within the film. In an interview the director, Courtney Hunt, said she didn't want the Native American element of the film to devolve into an exposition, so she gave us just enough to understand that Lila, one of the main characters in the film, feels both alienated from whites, mainstream American culture, and her own community. We understand enough about the disparity between Mohawk law and US law to realize there is too much murky territory for there not to be crime and confusion.

The filming itself, while not particularly interesting--and shot entirely on somber, washed-out DV--does what it can. Close-ups are not gratuitous, the sense of location is palpable, and the cinematography evokes the anxiety, desolation, and economic depression that permeate the story of the film.

The best thing about Frozen River is by far the narrative. In the aforementioned interview, Hunt also mentioned that it was vital to her that she keep her audience engaged, that there had to be a story, not just a message or a feeling (and Sweet Moses to I hate message films), and she had probably been influenced by her father in that regard, who was always watching Westerns when she was growing up. Frozen River utilizes several tropes of the Western but transports them to upstate New York in the dead of winter. We have the murky borders where the law may not apply, tensions between whites and Native Americans, smuggling (though in this case people and not money or guns), and a morally conflicted protagonist whose heart is in the right place. Putting a Western in the disguise of a low-budget socially-aware thriller was some brilliant genre bending, seriously.