The version of American History that most students learn is that the American Revolution took place largely due to the concept of “taxation without representation.” That the colonists found it frustrating and unfair to have to send taxes to a country that didn’t include any representation for them, thus bringing about a rebellion that would form the foundation of the current United States of America. What’s often left out is that another aspect of colonist frustration was formed via the 1763 proclamation by King George III stating that none of the recognized members of the colonies were to expand west, an idea that drew ire (and many middle fingers “because freedom”), and thus, said original representatives of the United Kingdom did what other settlers/colonists do and colonized the country. Since then, despite making multiple promises to the Indigenous peoples of the land, the U.S. government has repeatedly broken said agreements or done the least to uphold them, including reducing the effectiveness of the laws that protect members of reservations and prosecute non-members who commit crimes on them. This creates opportunities for less moral or ethical individuals to take advantage of a system that finds no value in maintaining promises, thereby devaluing the lives of all Indigenous peoples. Filmmaker Sabrina Van Tassel (The State of Texas vs. Melissa) explores the consequence of failed responsibility by the U.S. government in her latest work, Missing from Fire Trail Road, having its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival 2024. At once a personal story of loss and a grand accusation of culpability that extends beyond the Washington State-located Tulalip reservation and across the entire North American continent.
Lynette, Nona, and Gerry in Sabrina Van Tassel’s documentary MISSING FROM FIRE TRAIL ROAD. Photo Credit: FilmRise. Photo courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival.
November 2020, the day before Thanksgiving, Mary Ellen Johnson-Davis went missing. In December of 2020, she was reported missing and the search for her began. Two years later, filmmaker Sabrina Van Tassel, in conjunction with family members, associates, and members of the Tulalip reservation in Washington State, just outside of Seattle, sets out to document what is known of the incident and where things stand. The further Van Tassel takes the audience into the mystery of Mary Ellen’s disappearance, the wider a net of culpability expands and begins to take shape, demonstrating that the violence that likely took Mary Ellen didn’t occur as a result of her choices, but of many that took place off the reservation and with ill-intent in mind.
A scene from Sabrina Van Tassel’s documentary MISSING FROM FIRE TRAIL ROAD. Photo Credit: FilmRise. Photo courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival.
Mary Ellen Johnson-Davis is a real person with family and friends who are worried about her and are seeking answers. Too often, tragedies require faces for empathy to grow within individuals in order for any kind of positive change or action to occur. In this way, Van Tassel offers the story of Mary Ellen so that we, the audience, have someone to identify with, to understand, and to care for. That while others may want to use all that occurred in her life before as an excuse to not care about what happened to her as an adult, to disregard her disappearance, Van Tassel provides powerful evidence given to us delicately that what happened to her is an inevitability of the choices made generations before and they will continue to occur to others unless someone stands up and does something. Van Tassel never gives the impression of using or manipulating the loss of Mary Ellen, rather, she becomes a point by which the filmmaker can dig in deeper into the greater issues and implications audiences may be less familiar with while giving them a specific example of failed action.
The execution of the documentary is both simple and effective. Van Tassel opens with the story of Mary Ellen and her immediate family, capturing the family walking areas around and within Tulalip reservation as they recall what they know about Mary Ellen’s disappearance. From here, mixing as-it-happens moments and talking head interviews, Van Tassel inserts the audience into trusted spaces so as to feel welcomed when given information that’s both tragic and dire. Between intimate cinematography from Christophe Astruc (Monique Olivier: Accessory to Evil) and Cyril Thomas (The State of Texas vs. Melissa), and the intense score from Christophe La Pinta (Through the Fire) and member of the Lummi Nation of western Washington State songwriter Antone George, the whole of Missing comes across like a thriller, which, upon beginning, never lets up until the end. Van Tassel smartly designs the film to begin small, focused on the disappearance of Mary Ellen and the impact on her family to pull us in, and then slowly introduces tangential elements so as to make the audience familiar with continually expanding issues. Because Astruc and Thomas place the audience within close proximity to the people on screen, we’re more likely to feel the humanity of their plight, so that when Van Tassel eventually moves us to other reservations, we’re more open to the notion that perhaps the trauma that we learn about isn’t as isolated as authorities might have us believe. More importantly, as the score from La Pinta and George pounds us, we’re more willing to concede that the steps taken by both American and Canadian governments to reduce Indigenous populations and traditions via boarding schools (known as residential schools in Canada) is something that the current populace still hasn’t reconciled or made right. With recent films like Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) and Fancy Dance (2023), both featuring Oscar-nominated actor Lily Gladstone, one might mistake such big screen stories as a major leap for representation and awareness of the kinds of treatment Indigenous peoples endure, but they are merely adaptations of truths that have yet to be fully revealed or understood. Van Tassel seems to understand this well, giving the audience little room to rest between revelations and discoveries as Missing progresses, ultimately leaving the audience angry and (hopefully) ready to cause good trouble.
Deborah Parker in Sabrina Van Tassel’s documentary MISSING FROM FIRE TRAIL ROAD. Photo Credit: FilmRise. Photo courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival.
Activist, Indigenous leader, and producer on the film, Deborah Parker, states to a group of individuals that (and this is paraphrasing) if Mary Ellen were caucasian, the reaction by media and the general public would’ve been vastly different. She continues be suggesting that it’s up to them, their community, to keep speaking up so that someone might notice. By the time she says this, Van Tassel has already established how Mary Ellen’s sisters, Nona and Gerry, and cousin, Lynette, feel about their lost relative, they have shared their own and heard other testimony regarding violence done unto Indigenous women by non-tribal members, and they have received supported commentary from the police chief who confirms that if a non-tribal member commits a violent act against a member, they are not permitted to take legal action against the non-tribal member. So when Parker makes this statement, especially early into the documentary, the audience comes to realize that what we’re watching *is* that action, is that raised voice, is that opportunity for someone new to learn about what’s happening to women on the Tulalip reservation and on others throughout Washington State (thereby suggesting similar experiences at reservations throughout North American) so that the burden of change is relieved, even somewhat, by allies who may be able to help change what is happening. Not even so much to find Mary Ellen, should that be possible, but to prevent the circumstances which lead to her disappearance from happening to anyone else and to break the cycle of irresponsibility and trauma that began generations ago by the hands of the U.S. Government and others.
Screening during Tribeca Film Festival 2024.
For more information, head either to the official Missing from Fire Trail Road Tribeca 2024 or the FilmRise webpage.
For more information on the issues explored within the documentary, head to Native Hope’s Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women webpage.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
It’s Tulalip not Talulip. Look it up and revise spelling.
Thank you for pointing that out. It appears that I accidentally swapped the “u” and “a.” That is a terrible oversight and has been corrected.