By Dan
Hudak
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Violence rules in September Dawn. |
You
already know that one of the worst tragedies in American
history occurred on Sept. 11. September Dawn
tells the story of the other horrible event that
happened on that date.
The somewhat tedious but
effective film takes place in 1857 as a group of travelers
led by Capt. Alexander Fancher (Shaun Johnston) and Nancy
Dunlap (Lolita Davidovich) stop in Cedar City, Utah, for
much-needed rest and refurbishment. The wagon train consists
of people from both Missouri and Arkansas, something the
local Bishop/Mayor/General Jacob Samuelson (Jon Voight), a
strict Mormon, makes note of while welcoming them to the
small town.
He’s not, however, a
trusting man. Because a group of disaffected Mormons from
Missouri killed Mormon founder Joseph Smith (Dean Cain),
Jacob receives permission from his elders to murder the
travelers on the grounds that they are conspiring to
suppress Mormon worship and usurp the power of Brigham Young
(Terence Stamp), the president of the Mormon church and the
governor of the Utah territory (it did not become a state
until 1896).
And so during the morning
of Sept. 11, 1857, 120 innocent men, women and children were
brutally murdered in the name of religious salvation. They
have to “atone for their sins,” the Mormons believed,
completely ignoring the fact that the victims meant no harm.
Although the film is
“inspired by actual events,” artistic license allows for a
Romeo & Juliet love story between Jacob’s son
Jonathan (Trent Ford) and Emily (Tamara Hope), a farm girl
from the wagon train who finds herself smitten after
Jonathan tames an untamable horse. Far too much time is
spent with Jonathan telling the horse to “shhhhhh” and
bravely riding him, which adds to the feeling that there’s a
lot of exposition but very little actually happening.
Tighter editing would’ve added clarity and coherence to the
film, and made it more watchable.
Better editing would not,
however, make the slaughter of so many innocent people
easier to endure. This is not an easy movie to watch —
relative boredom for the first 100 minutes followed by a
hateful mass murder — but it is well-acted and does, whether
we like it or not, feel disturbingly real.
Historians have long
debated Young’s actual involvement in the genocide, but that
hasn’t stopped screenwriter Carole Whang Schutter and
co-writer/director Christopher Cain (Dean’s father) from
implicating Young in the massacre. In fact, the film is
clearly anti-Mormon; a tart denunciation of the movie from
the Mormon leadership has been issued, but the low-key
status of the film has likely prevented the Mormon prejudice
from becoming a bigger issue.
What Schutter and Cain are
really going for, though, is an allegorical condemnation of
current U.S. foreign policy. Killing in the name of
religion, or the interpretation of verse as justification
for murder, haunts both the terrorists we fear today and the
minds of our leaders, who have and will continue to order
the murders of others to support the noble cause of
spreading democracy.
It’s a shame that nearly
150 years later we still have not learned from the lessons
of our past.
Comments? E-mail dhudak22@yahoo.com.
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September
Dawn ***
Directed by Christopher
Cain. Written by Cain and Carole Whang Schutter. Starring
Jon Voight, Trent Ford, Tamara Hope, Jon Gries, Taylor
Handley. Rated R.
**** A genuine must-see
*** Entertaining
** Mediocre but not
worthless
* A wretched waste of
time
Opening in Miami-Dade
County this Friday: Goya’s Ghosts, Illegal Tender,
Mr. Bean’s Holiday, My Best Friend, The
Nanny Diaries, Resurrecting the Champ, Rocket
Science, War, Balls of Fury (Wednesday,
Aug. 29).
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