There are series and films that are actually nothing more than dried up memories of other, mostly better series or films – and hardly any genre has worn out as much as teenage series. Dark secrets, love triangles, acts of desperation, drugs, all these motifs are as certain in youth series as FDP jokes are in Today’s show.
The eight-part series is a nice exception Reservation dogs by Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo, who can be seen on Disney +. You notice that in the first episode. Bear, a 16-year-old curly-head who lives on a reservation in Oklahoma, receives a visit from one of his ancestors from the spirit world. The ancestor introduces himself as William Knifeman, an indigenous warrior from America, just as it was shown in westerns in the sixties: feathers on his head, enthroned on a horse. He fought in the legendary Battle of Little Bighorn, the warrior tells young Bear. Although, fought, well, he didn’t get that far. But at least he rode over the hill back then, really wildly, straight at the enemy. Then his horse stumbled and he died in a fall. But he does not allow malice: “You and your gangster friends, what do you do for your people?”
Many of the actors and writers in the series are from indigenous peoples of America
The “gangster friends” are young Bear’s clique, four indigenous teenagers who live on the reservation and who, of course, call themselves Reservation Dogs. Like the crew in Quentin Tarantinos Reservoir Dogs Bear, Elora, Cheese and Willie are criminals. Instead of diamonds, the “Rez Dogs” only steal a truck full of “Flaming Flamers” chips. They sell the car at the scrap dealer and keep the chips. Win win.
How to get it from series co-inventor Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit, THOR: Ragnarok) knows and appreciates, is too Reservation dogs traversed by a charming, sometimes gloomy situation comedy. But it is above all the second head of the series duo, Sterlin Harjo, who makes this project something special. He himself comes from Oklahoma, belongs to the indigenous people of the Seminoles, just like the majority of the cast and authors of the series belong to various indigenous peoples of America. The series is more than funny, bizarre and has a nice look: It is authentic, unique and maybe even cooler than Tarantino’s blood spattering movie model.
Black magic and a broken health system loosely coexist in this plot
He doesn’t want to “over-explain” everything, says Harjo in an interview with the News platform Indian Country Today. He throws the audience directly into the lived culture in the reservation, plays with its elements, is self-deprecating without being cruel: black magic, braided men, rapping fathers, the “Lighthorse” reserve police, legal marijuana, a broken health system and broken dreams are mixed here as easily as if it were a ready-made baking mix. And yet the result is a high quality product. Black magic?
No, if you like the magic of Reservation dogs If you want to understand, you may have to look for similarities where at first glance there are none. If someone other than the Viennese Peter Patzak had the Viennese crime series Kottan determined a Viennese cult product? Were Those who die sooner are dead longer such a classic, wouldn’t the indigenous Upper Bavarian Marcus H. Rosenmüller have portrayed Upper Bavarian villages in such a pointed way? No And that’s exactly how it is Reservation dogs more than just a teenage series, but rather: an attitude towards life.
Reservation Dogs, eight episodes, on Disney +.