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In Praise of Reservation Dogs flipside episode “Wanda”
Being someone who writes about, makes films about the Flipside, I can’t recommend any higher the film “Defending Your Life” by Albert Brooks.
It’s like Albert made a funny documentary about the process that everyone reports. That we “return home” to the flipside (eat as much as we want, don’t gain weight) and have a life review. Depending upon our life review it kinda, sorta (Karma doesn’t mean sin or baggage in Sanskit, it means “action” or “energy”) dictates what we’re going to do next.
We can come back — we can learn new lessons. Or in the case of Albert chasing down Meryl Streep, he gets a shot at some kind of “new insight.”
Recently, Reservation Dogs (the terrific show by Taika Waititi, Sterlin Harjo and Garrett Basch) details a slice of Americana no one is aware of, let alone plumbed with such depth before. Aside from the fact that all the cast members, filmmakers are native Americans, the stories are all told from the indigenous people’s pov. Watching the show is like picking up a copy of a book written in vernacular for the first time.