Richard Crouse

“Bones of Crows,” a new period drama now playing in theatres, covers decades of history, but is tied to recent, horrifying events.

Jumping through time, from the 1800s to the 2020s, the story of the intergenerational trauma caused by the Canadian residential school system, focusses on the family of Aline Spears (Grace Dove). A Cree woman born to a large, happy family in 1930s Manitoba, everything changes when Aline and her siblings are forcibly taken from their parents who are told they will be thrown in prison if they don’t sign over their children to the residential school system.

Abused, physically and emotionally—“I could kill you and bury you out back and nobody would care,” a priest snarls at the headstrong Aline.—the priests and nuns systematically attempt to strip the siblings of their Indigenous heritage, religion and identity, forcing them to assimilate them into the dominant Canadian culture. It is, as one character says, “a lesson in unrelenting cruelty.”

During World War II Aline escapes the horrors of the school by enlisting in the Canadian Army.

“The only way we can make sure they don’t send you back to that school is to send you to war.” During her raining to become part of an elite squad of code talkers who used the Cree language to disguise military intelligence, she meets and marries Adam (Phillip Lewitski).

Returning home from war to raise their family, Adam suffers PTSD, while Aline is haunted by the abuse she suffered at the hands of her sadistic teachers.

As the movie skips through time, we learn more about the residential school, Aline’s life after the war, her sister’s legal woes and the next generation, the children that carry the trauma in their DNA.

The process of healing is ever present, however, as Aline remembers the words her mother said to her as she enlisted in the army. “You be everything you are meant to be. Don’t let the darkness win. Don’t let them win.”

Métis-Dene writer and director Marie Clements covers a great deal of ground, much of it hard going. The cruelty and attempts to dehumanize Indigenous youth are brought to horrific life, and the depictions of residential schools; child abuse, sexual and psychological abuse and racism may be very unsettling for many viewers.

But even though the film chronicles a century of generational trauma, it is also a celebration of Cree resilience and tradition. There are eye-opening depictions of atrocities, necessary to tell the story, but as Aline confronts the past, there is also a sense of justice.

It is a story of hard truths, told with skill—despite its sprawling nature, it doesn’t feel bloated—and emotion that gets to the heart of how generational trauma forever altered the lives of the characters.