“FANCY DANCE”, A HEART-BREAKING DRAMATIC PRODUCTION
Cinema Writer/Film Critic Efe TEKSOY; wrote drama film “FANCY DANCE”, for America’s Los Angeles-based Internet Newspaper @alaturkanews.
RESERVATION LIFE
Fancy Dance, which had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2023, is the debut feature film of Erica Tremblay, a Native American filmmaker known for her documentaries. The film, which premiered on Apple TV+ on June 28, 2024, explores the family ties of indigenous culture in Oklahoma and the challenges of Reservation life. A dramatic production that works strikingly. Leading role; Lily Gladstone, who won the Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Academy Award-OSCAR for Best Actress for her performance in Martin Scorsese’s crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).
Stars; Isabel DeRoy-Olson, Shea Whigham, Patrice Fisher, Arianne Martin, Crystle Lightning, Tyler Tipton, Ryan Begay and Audrey Wasilewski.
DRAMATIC JOURNEY
After his sister’s disappearance, Jax is forced to live with his nephew Roki. She barely makes ends meet and takes care of her nephew Roki on the Native American Seneca-Cayuga Reservation in Oklahoma. But because Jax is a con artist and has a bad past, he risks losing custody to Roki’s grandfather, Frank. Despite this, Jax ignores the law and takes his nephew with him to search the countryside for his sister. Then they head to the Grand Nation Powwow, a dance held by Native Americans and First Nations communities. The journey, which begins as a search, creates a bond between the two, from an aunt-daughter relationship to a mother-daughter relationship. Along the way, we encounter a struggle that touches upon the hardships faced by American Indians and the tyranny experienced by women. Touching on the issues of “Racial Discrimination” and “Gender Discrimination”, the production offers the audience an adventure, sometimes sad and sometimes emotional, with a journey story aspect as an important plot point.
IDENTITY POLITICS
Thanks to the character of Jax, who tries to keep the family together, the story tells about a network of social relations, and on the other hand, A character who is isolated from society because of his dirty past and ethnic origin. We see that she is faced with “identity politics”. It is also obvious that the story has a double structure. In the first part, the view on sexuality and society we see through the character of Jax. The second part is the relationship between Jax and his nephew Roki. In addition, we also see traces of philosophy. Judith Butler, who completed her higher education and doctorate at Yale University, works as a professor in the field of “Rhetoric and Comparative Literature” at the University of California. In her most important work, “Gender Trouble”, which is among the fundamental works of feminist theory; “Although the unproblematized unity of Women is frequently referenced for the sake of building identity-based solidarity, the feminist subject is divided due to the distinction between sex and gender.” says. We witness the identity-based solidarity that Butler mentioned through the characters Jax and Roki in the movie Fancy Dance. We can also see that the aunt and her nephew, who are at the mercy of justice, are trying to overcome the gender inequality they are exposed to along the way, through the female solidarity they practice.
BEHIND THE SCENES
-Lily Gladstone filmed this during her breaks from “Killers of the Flower Moon” (2023)
-Producer Nina Yang Bongiovi stated at the 2023 Hawai’i International Film Festival that the film had multiple offers for distribution but chose not to sell the film until Lily Gladstone’s awards campaign for Killers of the Flower Moon finished.
EFE TEKSOY
REFERENCES AND SOURCES
BUTLER. Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Cinsiyet Belası). Başak Ertür, translate, Istanbul: Metis Yayinlari press, 2005
