Gather (2020)

This is a beautiful documentary about food, heritage, belonging, and nature. I really appreciated each thread it follows in exploring the larger subject of Native food practices, and the film is put together wonderfully.

In the U.S., Native Americans have disproportionately high rates of diabetes. Genocide and centuries of displacement have impoverished Native communities in many ways, including their access to healthy food. However, across the country, people are returning to traditional food practices to improve health, reconnect with nature, and foster a greater sense of community and Native pride.

Like many documentaries dealing with race in America, Gather is rooted in some terrible things. We look at how Native tribes were removed from their ancestral lands, which cut them off from their heritages of hunting and gathering. We look at the boarding school system, which attempted to force assimilation on Native children and stripped them of their people’s traditions. We look at the near extinction of the buffalo, which was an environmental disaster as well as an attempted genocide against a culture that depended on them for sustenance. We look at how many Native communities now are food deserts, where, as one young man describes it, it’s literally easier to find/buy drugs than fresh produce.

But even though the documentary gets into all these injustices to establish the widespread issues at play here, the film itself is about how people from various tribes are pushing back. In the southwest, a chef and his colleagues farm Native vegetables, teach community members about traditional gathering practices, and make plans to opening a restaurant that serves healthy, nutritious dishes. In northern California, an outreach group teaches young people about cultural river fishing, helping them get in touch with their heritage while providing an alternative to gangs. In the Midwest, the daughter of a farmer with a buffalo herd studies the health advantages of buffalo meat, wanting to use conventional western science to provide evidence for Native health practices.

All of these are instances of people fighting for something more so than fighting against something. They’re fighting for the health and well-being of their communities, and that involves nutrition, but it also involves history and culture. With the Native restaurant, we meet three people who’ve struggled with addiction in the past, but embracing their cultural heritage and getting back to nature through Native food practices has been healing for them on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. With the fishing group, they’re teaching youth how to fish, but they’re also teaching them leadership skills and providing a safe place for them to belong. With the budding scientist, she’s using microscopes and chemical tests to validate what her ancestors have always known, asserting her own Native pride even as she educates on ways to reduce diabetes in her community.

In addition to all of that, it’s just a lovely film. The lush nature shots are gorgeous, as is the footage of food carefully prepared by hand. The soundtrack, both the orchestral music and the Native-composed songs, infuses the scenes with even greater emotion.

Warnings

Violence (including discussion of genocide and abuse, and killing animals while hunting,) language, and thematic elements (including discussion of racism and addiction.)