WENDIGO

CAUTION–SPOILERS NEAR END

     Like so many movies I wrote about,
Wendigo sets its sights high.   It
refuses to follow commercial formulas.  Not that it
succeeds at everything it tries to do.  Many of its special
effects are unconvincing.  The story may seem confused,
or too ambiguous. Others will find it pretentious.

     What does Wendigo hope to
accomplish, that makes it stand out? 

      It shows us a frightening series of
events, coming hard and fast.   You feel their effects
on an upper middle-class Manhattan family, especially their
young child.  This young boy, Miles is too bright,
too imaginative not to try to put these devastating
events into perspective.  It is a chilling process to
watch Miles do this.

   As Wendigo begins, Miles is sitting
alone, in the back of a large, well-furnished car on a
dark country road.  He is absorbed in some private game;
in one hand he holds a plastic model of a wolfman slightly
resembling the character from the 1940’s movies.  In the
other hand, a figure resembling a “transformer.”

   George and Kim, Miles’ father and mother, talk
quietly in the front seat.  Upscale Manhattan talk,
high-power careers.

   Then in a second, everything changes.  The car
slams into a male deer.  The deer propelled over
the roof, leaving a trail of blood across the windshield. 
Then it is lying by the side of the road, motionless but not
dead.  The car is trapped in snow and mud.  Three local
hunters approach the car.  All carrying high-power
rifles.  Two have that “same shit, different day” look on
their faces.  The third has a look of quiet fury—a
walking time bomb.

   George is able to keep it together.  “You mind
putting that thing down?” he asks calmly.  But you see
Miles’ face, literally twitching as he takes this in.  It’s
not as if his family ignores him; when one hunter shoots the
buck, Kim gets out of the car and screams at him for using the gun
in front of Miles.

   The family has a long wait for a tow truck.  The
hunters, not asked to stay, remain at the scene. 
The angry one, Otis, suddenly walks over to the car and tells
George he busted one of the buck’s antlers.

   Finally the tow comes.  The driver knows the
hunters, and they convince him to let them pull the
car free. 

    George refuses to pay them, saying, no one
asked for your help.  Kim gives them money; Otis thanks
her sarcastically.

   Your first impression:  things could have worked
out much worse.  Like in
Deliverance. 

   But keep in mind, Miles is a young child who’s never
heard of Deliverance.  He’s just
seen an innocent creature killed, his car stuck in the middle
of the wilderness, and his parents confronted by men
with guns.  Not exactly
The Velveteen Rabbit.

   At first, the house where they’re spending the
weekend looks safe and comfortable.  Miles never sees
the bullet holes in the windows and wall, but George notices.
 And without a doubt, Miles picks up on his father’s
anxiety.

      Miles draws pictures of what he
remembers. The buck. All the blood. Unable to sleep, he looks
through the illustrations in his book of Native American
History.  The (appropriate and realistic) violence in
the pictures means more to Miles than ever before.  He falls
asleep but dreams of Otis coming in the room and shooting
him.

   He stares at a wood carving in one case.  A
strange but gentle Native American man describes the figure
to Miles.  The Wendigo,  a truly powerful spirit,
capable of taking on many forms.  “It can fly at you
like a sudden storm…without warning.”

    “Always hungry, its hunger is never
satisfied.  The more it eats the bigger it gets, the bigger
it gets the hungrier it gets.”

The figure Miles finds   

     Miles is more intrigued than
frightened.   He appears to view the legends as another
form of super-hero story.   He has frames of reference
for those.

    But the buck’s violent death is different for
him.  Back in the car, he is recalling the
Native American’s words, “there are spirits that are angry”
as they drive by Otis’ house and see the buck hanging on a
rack.  Miles imagines the buck’s angry spirit and is
terrified.  He may well feel responsible; he was riding
in the car that hit it.

Otis–not satisfied till he gets vengeance

     You see a dramatic change in Miles when George
takes him sledding.  The father does most of the talking
as they walk up a long hill. He recites a little bit of Robert
Frost’s poetry, exactly right for this snowy day.  Miles
asks his dad if he’s heard of the Wendigo.   George
answers in a reassuring way: probably it only eats the bad
guys, not good kids like you.  He speaks a little about
people’s need for mythology.    Telling his
son: don’t disbelieve it, but don’t view it literally.

      These moments represent a
near-perfect father and son bonding.  The father points the
way for the son growing up and viewing the world.  He
doesn’t tell him, look at it my way, but gently
introduces him to his perspectives.  Miles is more than
willing to listen; not a clone of his father, but able to
integrate his viewpoints.

   Only seconds after they start downhill, George falls
backward off the sled and lies motionless.  Miles
is afraid his father is dead.  The wind picks up
suddenly; the snow blows in circles.  Miles abruptly
is frightened and runs.

   Hours later, Kim finds Miles asleep in the snow, in
shock.  They search for George; he seems to have walked
away.  After a long search they finally find him near the
house.  Although he is conscious and talking, they can
see he has lost a lot of blood.

   Kim sends Miles inside to bring out a blanket; Miles
does it, stopping to pick up the wooden figure. 
Standing next to his bleeding dad, Miles momentarily sees
something—perhaps the real Wendigo, two or three
times as tall as George, made up entirely of bare, dead
branches.  He recalls the words, “It can fly at you…and
devour you…”

   As they drive to the hospital, George is in a
delirious state and talks a lot.  You imagine Miles’
struggle, processing all of it, on top of knowing that his
father was shot.  George asks him about the
wooden figure, tells him, “See?  I was listening to
you…Give me your hand, Miles.”

   In the car and waiting in the hospital corridor,
Miles hears a much-condensed tale of life and death from his
dad.  Not that Miles is anywhere near ready for his
initiation, but it is forced on him,  like it or
not.  Every word deeply powerful in its own way. 
 “Miles, I want you to take care of your Mom…Such a
beautiful day…You’re my family…I’m always gonna be with you…”

   Then his dad is rolled into the OR; Miles is alone
and he knows it.

    No one notices Miles entering the room while
his father is prepped for surgery.  He doesn’t see much
blood but it is clear his dad’s life is hanging in the
balance.  Miles imagines in graphic detail his dad
sitting up, screaming for help.  Miles faints.

Miles sees the wooden figure as his protection

SPOILERS AHEAD

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   Sometime later, Kim finds Miles on the floor. 
Later still, Miles watches his mother in the corridor while a
woman from the hospital talks to her, and ominously drops his
dad’s boots.  Seeing Kim’s expression, Miles probably
knows already.   His dad is dead.

   Only a few minutes later, Otis is wheeled down the
same corridor.  His eyes meet Miles’ for a moment, then
Otis is gone, too.

   You never find out what goes through Miles’ mind,
seeing Otis.   That Otis is about to die too? 
That the wooden Wendigo protected him and his mom, but not
his dad, not Otis?  That he himself
willed the Wendigo to kill Otis?  That the
angry spirit of the buck, working somehow through
the Wendigo, killed Otis?  So many questions, so few
answers, especially for a city kid; the Catskills may as well
be Siberia for him.

   To many, an ending like this must be unsatisfying, a
reason not to like Wendigo.  Too much
ambiguity, too much not explained.     

   But think about a movie like
The Emerald Forest, and you may get some
additional perspective.

   In that film, Tomme has grown up among adults who
have taught him long and hard about his world.  They can
sense exactly when he is ready to become a Man.   They
not only give him the appropriate ceremony, they send him on
a vision quest to ensure he finds his own way.  Miles is much
younger, and lives in a society which has lost touch with
most of its rites of manhood.  This is the real horror
of Wendigo;  imagining yourself in
Miles’ shoes.

   With only the little bit of learning he has had, he
now must face life without a father.

   I can see plenty of negatives people will find with
this movie.  Too ambiguous.  It jumps around,
telling too many stories at once.  Amateurish special
effects at times.  Shock-editing with no clear
purpose. All valid complaints…to some extent.

   But look at Miles and all he is forced to go
through.  His struggle to put any of his strange
journey into perspective makes a story that cuts deep.