New Beginnings

Bluesky

Documentarians often refer to the people in their films as “characters”, as though they are playing a part of some description. What’s noticeable about the latest collaboration between Isabelle Ingold and Vivianne Perelmuter is that its subject – Native American Vietnam veteran Al Moon – has a strong presence not just as an on-screen participant but in shaping the whole project, via voiceover which allows him to ruminate not only on his own life but on his general philosophy.

When we accompany him on a long-avoided trip to meet fellow veterans on the opposite side of the country from the Yurok Reservation in California where he lives, Perelmuter and Ingold don’t just help us to walk a mile in his shoes but to have an inside track to his emotions thanks to their collaborative approach. Footage of and reflections on the salmon from the Klamath River, which runs through the reservation add another dimension. The struggle back upriver of the fish is not a metaphor that the directors overplay but the parallels are there, while the sense of precariousness also extends to life in general at Yurok.

New Beginnings is laced with a sense of trauma and conflict. As Moon puts it: “Everything is coming at us from all directions.” Moon’s trauma seems almost like river sediment, built of layers that include the cultural trauma of racism and oppression faced by Native Americans and the wider national wound of the Vietnam War itself. Beneath it all, we’ll eventually learn that there’s a bedrock of personal trauma on which everything else rests.

Perelmuter and Ingold create a strong mood. Much of the film is shot at night, with reds and blues dominating. Moon’s voice-over, which became whispery after he suffered a stroke while the film was in post-production, lends it both measured pace and a confidential air.

Moon is stoic and determined but also conflicted. He’s not against guns he says, but notes that “once you start killing it gets too easy to do it”. His melancholic thoughts contrast sharply with the everyday interactions we see him having, where his calmness and kindness to others dominates. While the natural landscapes have a majesty, the people and places encountered have a run-down feel, the American dream a far distant prospect. What feels special about New Beginnings is its emotional immediacy and unpredictability. Moon isn’t just discovering new parts of the country as he hits the road but unexplored, or perhaps previously avoided, facets of himself. The result is a raw and intimate invitation for us to accompany him on that journey.

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