‘The Taking’ Overview: This Land Is Not Your Land

Whether it’s John Wayne movies or Chevrolet ads, Monument Valley has been immortalized within the American creativeness as a logo of this nation’s huge potential. “The Taking,” a brand new documentary directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, examines the positioning’s difficult place as a illustration of the Old West regardless of being positioned on Navajo land.

In the movie, photographs and clips of films, TV reveals and promoting campaigns which have historically featured Monument Valley are accompanied by voice-overs that specify how white cowboys have been seen as heroes and Native Americans as aggressors, obscuring a historical past of genocide and oppression.

The movie argues that maybe nobody has been extra central to this effort than the director John Ford, who used the area because the backdrop for his western films, with the dramatic panorama evoking and perpetuating beliefs of freedom and liberation central to his tales of rugged cowboys and villainous “Indians.”

Obscured on this fable making is the fact of the Navajo individuals, a lot of whom nonetheless reside within the area with out working water or entry to secure incomes. “The Taking” is profitable in demonstrating the way in which through which Monument Valley has grow to be a canvas onto which the general public can superimpose their very own concepts and myths. But had it included extra present photographs of the area and the realities of the Navajo individuals, it might have been more practical in changing these myths, going past movie evaluation to altering creativeness.

The Taking
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 16 minutes. In theaters.