The Roxie is playing Imitation of Life. Click the picture for a larger screenshot.
A film virtually lost for almost half a century, Kent MacKenzie's The Exiles is a fascinating artifact recently recovered and restored by UCLA and Milestone Films. Milestone is the same quality outfit that recently re-issued a brilliant "cigar box" edition of I Am Cuba. They curate a really wonderful collection of American independent, classic, and vintage films, including some 1910's animation like Gertie the Dinosaur. The Exiles is the most Criterion-like title in Milestone's library when it comes to presentation (aside from I Am Cuba).
MacKenzie started hanging out with a group of Native Americans after college. They were a mix of people born on and off the reservation. MacKenzie interviewed his friends and then employed them as actors in something of a dramatized re-enactment of their real lives with the interviews as voice-over. This blurring of documentary and narrative is fascinating for a few reasons beyond the stunning, inky nighttime photography of the Bunker Hill district of L.A.
The raw, embedded perspective on the lives of these young people is akin to a nature film with the humans playing the animals. One woman desperately wants her man (any man) to just settle down with her and have a couple of kids. One guy is genetically disposed toward catting around, drinking, and treating women like less than dirt. All the Natives intermingle with Latinos and Whites, but they are drawn back to each other after the bars close.
The two-disc DVD includes the feature with optional commentary from author Sherman Alexie and critic Sean Axmaker, the 2008 trailer, short film Bunker Hill 1956 (also MacKenzie), and clips from Los Angeles Plays Itself on disc 1. Disc 2 includes six short films: A Skill for Molina (NARA), Story of a Rodeo Cowboy (Kent MacKenzie), Ivan and His Father (Gary Goldsmith), Last Day of Angels Flight (Robert Kirstie), Bunker Hill: A Tale of Urban Renewal (Greg Kimble), and White Fawn's Devotion: The First Native American Film. Also on disc 2 are a couple of audio interviews and a pile of PDFs that include a production history document, the final script for Exiles, a funding proposal, and original publicity material, among various others. Amazon has it for $24.99.
Milestone is selling it themselves for $23.96 as of this posting.
