Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Zahn McClarnon, Kiowa Gordon, Jessica Matten, Jeri Ryan, Deanna Allison, Elva Guerra, Natalie Benally, DezBaa’, A Martinez, Ryan Begay, Nicholas Logan, Jaqueline Byers, John Diehl, Anderson Kee, Wade Adakai, Betty Ann Tsosie, Ernest Tsosie III, Gary Yazzie, Ramona DuBarry, Joseph Runningfox,
Dark Winds’ second season is one that sees the Native American belief and tradition blend even further with the notion of reluctance of adoption of what has been called Western civilisation.
Looking back through a sepia sense of thought it is possible to see through the absurdity that the Western genre of cinema strived to show up until the late 1960s, the senselessness of ideological damage routinely offered as entertainment and proving a point of racism at the indigenous people. It is to the credit of the series’ creative team that they acknowledge the destruction of the ways of the Native American not through war, but through the silence of assimilation, each passing year another moment of government instruction impinging on the ways of the past.
Dark Winds takes on this balancing act with honour and with a second murder investigation opened thanks to the actions of a man willing to commit atrocities as part of a cover up brought about by events in the first series, the equilibrium of the natural way and the craving of moral decay captured is one of heartbreak and renewal. Nowhere is this found more that in the personal battle between Zahn McClarnon’s Joe Leaphorn and John Diehl’s B J Vines, a tussle between the calm rationality driven to extreme anger in the pursuit of justice and revenge, and the flaunting excess of capitalism which believes intrinsically that they are immune from any reprisal or punishment.
Both actors’ crwtivity spurs on the flashpoints between them as they grow in strength during the six-part series, and when aided by the likes Kiowa Gordon, Jessica Matten, Jeri Ryan, and Nicholas Logan, what comes across on screen is one of unresolved tension spilling out from our own experiences and understanding of the Native American and the lies woven into history from the last 500 years.
A fiercely proud premise based on the writings of Tony Hillerman, a loyalty of production to the spirit and the art of obscure detective writings; keenly observed and with piercing insight; Dark Winds should be seen as the blending of subtly and custom which adopts crime and punishment as its unnatural offspring, one that sees the devil in the detail of legends and human monsters.
Ian D. Hall