An historic film, The Exiles combines the realism of social consciousness films with the loosely spun narrative of improvisational features to tell the true story of Native Americans adrift in a derelict neighborhood in Los Angeles, 1960.
An historic film, The Exiles combines the realism of social consciousness films with the loosely spun narrative of improvisational features to tell the true story of Native Americans adrift in a derelict neighborhood in Los Angeles, 1960.
The independently produced The Exiles was warmly received at the 1966 Venice Film Festival, then inexplicably fell into obscurity. This is a shame: though made 30 years ago, the issues raised by the film are just as potent and powerful today. The story concerns a trio of young Native Americans who decide to leave the reservation. Once they've reached Los Angeles, the three protagonists find themselves just as lost and isolated as they would have been in the middle of the desert.
Non-professionals Yvonne Williams, Homer Nish and Tommy Reynolds offer strong, naturalistic performances; in fact, they don't seem to be acting at all, but instead living their parts. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The Exiles ... presents one boozy night in the lives of Homer, Cliff, Tommy and Yvonne, from a convertible joy ride through the Third Street Tunnel, to an early-morning powwow.
Kent Mackenzie's magnificent, long-undistributed, unclassifiable first feature, The Exiles, stands as a rare consideration of the inner and outer lives of American Indians in a big American city.
Rife with astonishing black-and-white images of an unknown L.A. and clashing sounds of bars, cinemas and poker games, The Exiles is one of those movies that functions as both artifact and fresh discovery.
Its moving portraiture is refreshingly free of cliches and moralizing platitudes, and the high-contrast black-and-white photography and dense, highly creative sound track are equally impressive.
A cinéma vérité look at the rootless Native American community that once upon a time lived in Bunker Hill and hung out in downtown bars such as Club Ritz, this Kent Mackenzie film is a brooding picture of a darkly beautiful, long-gone Los Angeles.
There's no uplifting message here and the internal monologues that accompany their wanderings speak of desires and anxieties and disappointments that appear doomed to repeat themselves.
Kent MacKenzie's 1961 groundbreaking classic about Native American urban alienation, unfolds like an Edwin Hopper painting in motion as intimate noirish voiceover soliloquies of these three troubled protagonists.
For its beautiful black-and-white aesthetics, docudrama realism, and, sadly, still fresh portrait of off-reservation Native Americans, an excellent rediscovery
The amateur actors, many of whom in reality met sad ends on those same streets, are utterly convincing. You have the sense again and again that you've unearthed a time capsule -- a sensation that cinema alone of all the arts can impart.
Mackenzie imposes no obvious attitude or mediating outsider's perspective on the material; he just presents it to us, a snapshot of an otherwise unknown culture, with details specific to its time and place.
I don't know how to react to this film. Am I supposed to empathize with these lazy, sluggish Indian men? Aimless, callous, unemployed spongers who do nothing but drink, smoke, flirt, fight and play cards? It's as if the script aims to reinforce negative stereotypes."The Exiles" has virtually no dramatic shape. The men
do nothing useful, while the women work and quietly endure their unhappiness. The story spans about a day, and nothing transformative occurs. And most of the dialogue and ambient noise is awkwardly looped in post-production -- this is alienating. In particular, the casual chatter in bars and cafes is painfully stiff.The filmmakers deserve credit for making a worthwhile sociological statement on a non-existent budget but, beyond that, there's little to recommend "The Exiles" beyond some interesting glimpses of early-'60s Los Angeles.
At its best when photographing the exteriors of a lost city, "The Exiles" is an ethnographic docudrama about a trio of American Indians(Yvonne Williams, Homer Nish & Tom Reynolds) over a twelve hour period in Los Angeles. The men hang out, play poker, and get drunk. For them, they have lost confidence in the future,
being twice removed from their traditional lives. Yvonne who is pregnant is lonely as she goes to the movies while the men make the rounds before spending the night at a friend's place. For herself, any hope for the future she reserves for her unborn child for whom she is staying in the city to give him a better chance at leading a rewarding life.
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