A week or three ago I watched Rez Ball streaming on Netflix. It’s about basketball on the Navajo reservation (the rez), where basketball is close to a civic religion – think of football in West Texas as depicted in Friday Night Lights. It was directed by Sydney Freeland, a Navajo, and has an ensemble cast of people you never heard of because, well, it’s not that kind of film. But you may have heard of the producer, LeBron James.
Note, however, that the phrase “rez ball” also, and more fundamentally, indicates the style of basketball cultivated on the rez: “Run fast, shoot fast, don’t ever stop.” In the middle of the film we’ll see the Cuska Warriors playing against a seven-second shot clock which they sound out.
The film opens with credits playing on the screen while we hear voices commenting on some kids playing basketball. Then we zoom on in a desert while a voice utters, “From the shadow of beautiful Shiprock, coming at you with 50,000 watts” (as Shiprock, a recurring image, comes into view in the center of the frame). Now we see the kids, two of them playing one on one, with their parents commenting. One boy takes a three-point shot – “Jimmy with the three.” It bounces off the rim, and we jump cut to a third scene where a young man rebounds the ball. He takes it out and then drives in to make a layup. Finally, we see the title, “Rez Ball” over a black screen.
Obviously – at least in film logic – the two kids in the second scene have grown into the young men we see in the third. In the next minute or three we learn that one of the young men, Nataanii Jackson (the Braided Assassin), is a basketball star who sat out his junior year because his mother and sister (see saw them in the first scene) had been killed in a drunk driving accident. The other young man is his best friend, Jimmy Holiday (Kauchani Bratt), also a star player.
It's the beginning of a new season. The Cuska Warriors are about to play their first game of the season against the Gallup Bengals. They win, just barely. Their coach, Heather Hobbs (Jessica Matten), who’d been a star in college and then played professionally in the WNBA, is not happy – they’re ranked second in state – and lets them know it.
Their next game is against the Santa Fe Catholic Coyotes, who’d won the state championship the previous year. They crush the Warriors by 70. In the locker room after the game we learn why Nataanii Jackson hadn’t shown up to play. He’d killed himself.
At this point, roughly 25 minutes into the film, we know how the rest of the story will go, at least in rough outline. How do we know? It’s a sports film, and these films follow certain conventions. The Warriors will keep losing for a while, then they’ll get it together (a process that includes a day herding sheep), and come back to meet the Coyotes for the state championship. Do I have to tell you who wins that game?
The game is close at the half and stays close through the second half. Santa Fe is ahead, 78-77, as Holiday takes a shot at the final whistle. It doesn’t go in, but Holiday was fouled, so he gets three free throws. The first one goes in. Tie game.
Now the film switches gears.
I need to tell you about Holiday’s mother, Gloria Holiday (Julia Jones). She grew up with Coach Hobbs. They played ball together. Gloria was the better player, a natural. But...well, we’re not told, nor do the details matter. As the film opens she’s a single mom and an alcoholic. This and that, gets a job, starts going to AA meetings, gets a car, a junker. Decides to go to the championship game, which is off the rez. It’s one thing for her to drive on the rez, but once she gets off the rez she’s taking a risk because she has outstanding DUIs. Just as she arrives at the arena her car starts blowing smoke. That gets her pulled over by the police and then she’s taken to jail. But, knowing that her son is playing in the game, one of the officers sits down with her with a small radio and they listen to the final quarter.
We know all that as Jimmy gets ready to take his second shot. The lights go out, a spot comes on, shining directly on Jimmy over the basket from the left. The court disappears. A second spotlight shines over Jimmy from the right. We can see his mother sitting in a lawn chair: “That’s the thing about Natives. No matter how hard we try, we always find a way to lose. It’s in our blood.” He misses his second shot. We’re back in the court, fully lit. As Jimmy takes a couple of preparatory bounces the court once again goes black and his mother reappears: “The higher you go, the greater the fall. I just don’t wanna’ see you get hurt.” He replies, “Only one way to find out,” and takes the shot.
A day or two later Jimmy wakes up to hear someone shooting baskets in the hoop in front of his home. He goes out and sees his mother. They chat, she hands him a pile of recruitment letters, and remarks. “You gotta’ work on those free throws, though. Show me what you got, champ.” They start playing, talking trash.
Roll end credits.
* * * * *
While I don’t have a particular interest in sports films, I’ve watched a fair number of them. This is easily one of the best. Why? Think about those last two free throws and what the film had to do to support them.
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