Dunlevy: Montreal documentary hunts for stolen indigenous masks that inspired surrealists

Montreal Gazette

2 days ago

The repatriation and restitution of art and cultural materials is a hot topic these days. A prime example is estates trying to reclaim objects taken by the Nazis or sold by Jews under duress as they fled Germany. But there's another example closer to home.
Montrealer Joanna Robertson and Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond's absorbing new documentary So Surreal: Behind the Masks explores what happened to Yup'ik and Kwakwaka'wakw ceremonial masks taken from these indigenous tribes in Alaska and British Columbia's northwest coast more than a century ago by traders, government officials and collectors.
The masks were brought as far as New York, where they inspired some of the great European surrealist artists, who were living in exile mid-century, and eventually made their way to auction houses, world-famous museums and private collections.
Leading us on an investigative journey to learn the significance of these masks, the circumstances of their removal and where they ended up is Diamond. He appears on camera throughout the film as an unassuming, intrepid protagonist, pushing the narrative forward with playful determination.
He has done the same in his other films, including 2009's Reel Injun, which examined the problematic portrayals of Native Americans in Hollywood westerns, earning him and co-directors Catherine Bainbridge and Jeremiah Hayes three Gemini Awards and a Peabody Award.
'I've gotten quite comfortable (on screen),' Diamond said recently, over coffee with Robertson at Outremont's Croissanterie Le Figaro. 'Sometimes I forget the camera's rolling and I just act real goofy.'
'I think people appreciate it,' Robertson said. 'You bring a lot of humour to these (potentially) doom and gloom situations.'
One amazing shot in the documentary shows Diamond puffing on a cigarette as he rides a bicycle down the middle of the road in the bustling Champs Élysées, with the Eiffel Tower behind him, and ponders his next move.
Inspired by their subjects, the filmmakers take a surrealist approach to the storytelling as they weave together disparate clues and different ways of seeing the situation.
On the one hand are Yup'ik tribe members who are happy to see their masks being preserved and showcased under the same roof as the Mona Lisa: One magical moment finds Yup'ik artist and storyteller Chuna McIntyre singing and dancing joyously as he approaches one of his tribe's masks on display at the Louvre, during an after-hours visit.
On the other are members the Kwakwaka'wakw and their allies, who are in a continuing fight to see their masks — including many stolen during Canada's Potlach ban in 1921 — come home. At the heart of the intrigue is a quest to locate a mystical Raven Transformation Mask and possibly converse with its current owner about its eventual return.
Somewhere in the middle are the wild surrealists — Max Ernst, André Breton, Roberto Matta, Enrico Donati and Joan Miró — and their friends, including famed French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who were endlessly stimulated by the otherworldly dreamscapes evoked by these masks. The extent to which they were aware of how these artifacts were obtained is unclear.
'I'm grateful we're able to shine a light on these stories, which are so fundamental to our understanding of who we are — of colonization and also the importance of Indigenous storytelling and culture,' Robertson said. 'The surrealists saw something — they lived through war after war after war — and they saw something in these masks, however problematic, as a reminder there's another way of being, and of seeing the world.'
She expressed hope their film can foster empathy toward indigenous communities and all that they have lost.
'Yeah,' Diamond agreed, 'because if you lose your culture, you have nothing else.'