Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Antonio Negret
Starring: Sara Canning, Daniel Gillies, Jett Klyne, Alejandro Fajardo, Humberto Morales
Someone once said that when Britain visits Africa, Africa gets a lecture but when China visits Africa, Africa gets new roads. Of course, the Chinese aren't building roads in Africa out of simple benevolence, but if you badly need a road you're probably not going to question the motives behind those who are laying the tarmac. The American Catholic missionaries of director Antonio Negret's feature debut Shaman aren't building roads but they are offering food to the poverty-stricken indigenous residents of a village in rural Ecuador. While many of the locals have taken the soup, converting to Catholicism and learning to speak English, some steadfastly hold on to their own traditions and beliefs. This will lead to a clash between two belief systems as they battle for the soul of a young boy.
That young boy is Elliott (Jett Klyne), the 12 year-old son of missionaries Candice (Sara Canning) and Joel (Daniel Gillies). On the day before he's due to make his confirmation, Elliott ignores the warnings of the local kids and wanders into a forbidden cave. The next morning he is found in the care of the local shaman (Lisandro Morales), who warns Candice that her son is stricken with something that only his powers can tackle. Dismissing the shaman's words as mumbo jumbo, Candice takes the boy home, but it soon becomes clear that something disturbing has indeed happened to Elliott.
Shaman is most engaging when it's exploring the cultural and theological clash between the indigenous religion and that of the American interlopers. Candice believes the shaman is responsible for making her son ill, while Joel doesn't believe he has such powers. The local Catholic priest, Father Meyer (Alejandro Fajardo), finds himself caught in the middle, not wanting to upset either the locals or the Americans who are now keeping him in a job. The stress of this balancing act has resulted in him becoming a functioning alcoholic, constantly sipping form the bottles he hides around his vestry.
Father Meyer is the film's most interesting character, implicit in centuries of colonialism and now finding himself taking orders from new colonisers. It's something of a missed opportunity that the film doesn't make him the central focus. While horror regular Canning is excellent as always, Candice is the sort of losing-her-wits horror mom that we've seen all too often.
At a certain point the novelty factor of the Ecuadorian setting wears off as Shaman becomes yet another standard exorcism movie, albeit one with an indigenous rite rather than the customary Catholic performance. All of these movies have the same final act, the only difference here is that instead of a priest flinging holy water around we have a shaman squeezing the life out of a cute little capybara, which won't endear the film to animal lovers. Shaman raises interesting ideas about religion and colonialism, but it's all ultimately rendered as window dressing for a horror movie that skirts around its more complex ideas and finally settles for schlock and jump scares.
Shaman screens at the Raindance Film Festival on June 21st.
