We Were Children

All I can say about this movie is it is heartbreaking. It is a very honest but sad and truthful movie about how lives were taken and how identities were stolen from the indigenous children.

Being forced to change who you were and they took every inch of their pride and dignity.

This movie will make you cry and break your heart, but it's important we learn about the indigenous culture and what they went through.

We must heal in order to move forward.

Hello my name is Julian, I am currently 17 years old and born 1997 to let you know my age for the future. It was an experience to see my people back in the day, and also sad. I am a Cree Native and never really got to learn my language fully, though I believe the people in my community gave up on that since we aren't getting classes for it now from grade 9 to 12. But focus on the movie. This movie is a must-see for those who want to know our history. I believe race shouldn't matter, it's sort of stupid to judge someone based on their skin. What if aliens exist? They would say we are stupid for fighting each other. Sorry if this review isn't mostly about the movie, but I have to speak my mind on how it made me think through it, not to mention I don't want to spoil too much. Just watch it, trust me.

Edit: I corrected and deleted a few sentences from this review. I'm updating this in 2025, but want the review to remain somewhat the same. I still believe this movie is a must-watch given the global acknowledgement of residential schools from when I update this.

Tear jerking and anger provoking. This half dramatic part documentary tells how the Canadian government tried to eradicate a race out of their society by making aboriginal children leave their homes and attend church run boarding schools.

Some of the nuns are God crazy and some of the priests put the children through physical, emotional and sexual and mental abuse.

2 of the 80'000 survivors narrate this harrowing true story that only ceased in 1996

Pediphiles in the Catholic Church. Cruelty in the Catholic Church. This time innocent Native American children are victims of terrible crimes. Taken from their homes and abused in the name of God. These were not Gods people. Quite the opposite. Their reckoning must have been blazing.

At times, the interspersed interviews with the real life Glen Anaquod and Lyna Hart seemed intrusive. That's because the dramatizations were so strong. However, without this real life touch by the two children as elders, the overall impact of the film would have been lessened. The abuse (psychological, physical, spiritual, emotional, sexual, cultural) of the girl from Manitoba and the boy from Saskatchewan was so similar the viewer gets the sense that their experience was typical of all residential students at that time. The director, Tim Wolochatiuk, does a good job of bringing these parallels together. I also enjoyed the symbolism Wolochatiuk employed, especially that of Lyna's horses in her secret place. In the midst of the Idle No More and similar grass roots movements, this docu-drama is very timely. Showing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's parliamentary apology at the end of the show seemed to be done tongue in cheek, the irony apparent to all who know of Mr. Harper's plans to dismantle the First Nations people's rights.