Otherworldly L.A.

Unearthing the long-lost early
’60s gem The Exiles

RARE TREAT: The Exiles

by MATTHEW HAYS

Watching The Exiles is one of those strange, otherworldly cinematic experiences. Made by university students and first released in 1961, it has since faded into obscurity—until the same company that re-released Killer of Sheep also took up the restoration of this gem.

Anyone with any interest in historical representations of cities will need to attend, as will those with an interest in the images of aboriginals onscreen. Filmmaker Kent Mackenzie, then a film student at USC, read an article in Harper’s Magazine about the forced relocation of various American natives. Some, after being pushed off their reserves in Arizona and various other states, relocated in Los Angeles in the hopes of finding a better life. After spending some time with the native community there, he invited them to create a film with him—one in which some narratives would be concocted beforehand, and the feature would be shot cinema-verité style, with the new lightweight equipment which was allowing so many filmmakers to go against the grain of mainstream cinema. Like the French New Wave and the British Free Cinema movements, Mackenzie was bored by what was onscreen and wanted to break out.

The film follows several aboriginals as they tell us, in voiceover, of their lives and struggles. The central figure is a young pregnant woman who deals with a neglectful husband but maintains hope that her child’s life will be better than her own. The action, which is often minimal, is shot amid broad, sweeping shots of L.A. The cinematography is simply amazing—we get glimpses of the City of Angels in stark black and white that look like they came out of a ’40s film noir.

And like the French and British, who were tinkering with low-budget, documentary-style realism/expressionism hybrids, The Exiles has its bordering-on-surreal moments. At one point, Mackenzie captures several late-night revellers as they drive through a tunnel, laughing like drunken idiots. The juxtaposition of so many angles and such harsh lighting makes the sequence feel like something out of a David Lynch entry.

The Exiles is downright exhilarating, one of those lost films you just feel damn lucky someone found and had the good sense to restore. See it on the big screen.

THE EXILES OPENS FRIDAY, MARCH 6
AT CINÉMA DU PARC