Acclaimed Native American filmmaker Sterlin Harjo’s latest project is an exploration into the past that revealed much more than he anticipated. This May Be The Last Timeis a documentary film that looks to the origins of the music and culture of his distant ancestors.
It is a quest that found Harjo in the unexpected role of investigator into the mysterious 1962 disappearance of his grandfather.
Sterlin Harjo, from the Seminole and Muscogee Creek Nation, got his start in filmmaking at the Sundance Institute. Fueled by the success of his first three films, and inspired by a letter from his grandmother to make a documentary on the hymns of the Seminole and Muscogee Creek people, he started to work.
But as Harjo soon discovered, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of his grandfather, Pete Harjo, took on a much more significant role in the film than was expected.
“I was just going to talk about that a little bit in the film but as I was talking and interviewing people, I would find out that those people, the person that I was interviewing, was actually there when they were searching for my grandpa,” Harjo said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX5mq9gwFdk
Tribal hymns and songs are the primary focus of the film. But as Harjo interviewed those who knew and sang the hymns, he learned that many of his subjects where involved in the search for his grandfather. Often this fact came out after the interviews.
“I would have to get my equipment back out and start interviewing them again,” Harjo said.
The connection between the music being explored and his grandfather’s mysterious disappearance creates a supernatural undertone which Harjo incorporates into the final work.
“There's always an undercurrent of that going on,” Harjo said. “There were so many stories that I didn't include that would've helped push this idea even further but I didn't it needed to be.”
“That's why I start this film off with this kind of other worldly, spiritual story that this guy tells about singing for this young man's death and he could hear people singing with him but they weren't,” Harjo said. “He looked up and they weren't singing. So yeah, it’s definitely there.”
The scene Harjo referred to is but one of many used to interject the music which is primary to the film. As Harjo explains, its more than just a storytelling device learned in film school, stories are how his people used to convey the very songs he explores throughout the documentary.
“The only way that anyone talks about these songs is through stories. So I actually tell multiple stories to tell of these songs,” Harjo said.
The various stories Harjo weaves into This May Be The Last Time also reflect the varied and unique ways his people have conveyed the past.
“Anytime you talk to a native person, especially if you're talking to elders or spiritual leaders, or anyone like that, people in our communities don't tell stories in a linear fashion,” Harjo said.
“They couldn't tell the history of the songs but they could tell how those songs relate to their own history and their own families and who they remind them of who have passed on and how they connect to them,” Harjo said.
Next week on Indian Times, Dr. Hugh Foley offers insights into the origins and influences on the tribal hymns and music featured in the film.
This May Be The Last Time comes out on iTunes and other digital VOD platforms on November 11th.
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