Slamdance 2021 Review: End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock

End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock (2021) is an American/Finnish documentary. It was directed by Shannon Kring.

End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock is exactly what the title suggests. This documentary film follows several Native American women, detailing many of their efforts to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline across sovereign, tribal land.

This is a story ripped right from the headlines of recent years. The battle between indigenous Americans, and the United States government goes back to before the very beginnings of this great country of ours. It is a bloody history, replete with genocide, backstabbing, racism, lies, broken treaties, and broken promises. This particular chapter of the story is a very recent one, but contains many callbacks to Federal bullshit from years past.

The film focuses on a handful of women, and the various fronts upon which they fight their battles, respectively. While men are as much involved as women are in the efforts to resist this heinous act of governmental tyranny, this film focuses on the women in particular. It celebrates their roles as life-givers, and caretakers; how they are stewards of this crazy planet.

Unless you are a member of the Federal government, or one of the corporate oligarchs that controls them, you will likely find yourself outraged as you watch this film. Few can disagree, Native Americans have gotten a raw fuckin’ deal ever since Europeans showed up on this continent, and used colonialism and religious fervor as an excuse for their twisted despotism. End of the Line proves that times never really change.

I strive to avoid politics in my reviews as much as I can, even if the film deals with politically charged subject matter. So I don’t want to say too much about my own personal feelings on what is right or wrong in this situation. Although I’ve probably already given quite a bit away. It is fortunate then that I don’t feel like I need to say too much about this movie, because the more I say, the more likely I am to get myself in trouble. Which I’m sure I’ll do anyway.

End of the Line is a stirring documentary about a troubling subject. I don’t see how anybody could watch this film, and not become enraged, or at the very least troubled by the situation our indigenous brothers and sisters find themselves in. Even if one ignores the blatant racism and classism present in the decisions of the U.S. Government, one must still be appalled at the atrocities that the elites will commit upon citizens of their own country, in their reprehensible pursuit of profits.

Our government was designed to represent the people, and to make sure the good of the people was not compromised nor infringed upon. That’s why we get to vote for them, that’s why we pay them taxes. To watch them turn around and fuck enormous groups of people this way, and to see those getting fucked be too poor and disenfranchised to effectively combat this bullshit with anything other than civil disobedience is nothing short of infuriating.

The film contains a vast amount of footage taken at several of the major confrontations that have occurred, putting the audience smack in the middle of the proverbial shit. Much of this footage had my blood boiling. It has a very visceral impact, and hammers home how mistreated the people seeking to defend this land are. The film gets points for its unflinching depiction of unarmed protesters being handled with violence and bloodshed.

However, the film stumbles a little in the way it tells its stories. We get a brief introduction to the story of the pipeline, and we see a handful of our participants, and the endeavors they undertake to try and stop the corporate annexation of tribal land. Whether they are resisting bear mace and attack dogs on the front lines, or throwing themselves on the tender mercies of the United Nations.

Unfortunately, these various chapters are related in a slightly haphazard manner, and the film is slightly unfocused as a result. I suppose the upshot is that the shittiness of the Feds will have you seeing red so bad that you won’t even notice the unclear manner in which the stories of the stuff outside the battle is told. At least, that’s almost what happened to me.

The thing that sucks most of all is that there is so much media overload in life that I think most people are constantly looking to film and entertainment to get away from that stuff. Like, who is going to consume a day’s worth of news, social media outrage, and r/politics, and then want to check right into End of the Line? Like, I’m tired of being pissed off at how fucked up this world is. When it’s time to watch a movie, I’m looking for drama that is unlike real life. I can’t imagine I would ever watch End of the Line again by choice because, why would I want to make myself that mad on purpose?

But it is its power to enrage that is one of the strongest qualities of End of the Line. It is powerful and moving, and parts of it will totally break your heart. If you are the type to be motivated to join, or be an ally to social causes, you won’t need more than one viewing to make you want to do your part to help stop the DAPL. This film almost belongs more as an extended episode of Vice News, or an HBO documentary than it does a theatrically released film. It is a powerful piece of journalism.

So there you have it. End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock is an unfiltered, blood-boiling expose of a 21^st century American atrocity. It is insufficient at times, in terms of following the various stories of its protagonists. It is fully sufficient, however, in raising one’s ire, and shedding light on a predicament that probably too few people are fully aware of.