Seth and Peter Sciver eschew tradition for a powerful and extremely personal animated documentary.
Half-brothers Seth and Peter Sciver seem to occupy entirely different worlds. They’re sixteen years apart in age. Seth is white, and Peter is Cree. Peter is a maintenance worker, and Seth is an animator. Seth has one young child, and Peter has ten, some of whom are grown or deceased. But the only real obstacle in their relationship seems to be that Seth lives in Toronto, Canada’s largest city. In contrast, Peter lives in the remote First Nations community of Shamattawa, with a population of 1,019 and accessible only by boat or plane. Endless Cookie is an attempt to overcome that obstacle.
Seth applied for and won a film production grant from Telefilm Canada, which would used to finance trips to visit Peter in Shamattawa. They’re recording some of their conversations and animate them to fulfill the “film production” requirement of the film production grant, but there’s not much effort made to hide the fact that the whole thing is largely an excuse for the two brothers to hang out.
The result is far less formal than you’d expect to find from a Sundance documentary. And thank goodness for that, as it’s the sense of casual familiarity that makes Endless Cookie so effective.
Utterly effective in its lack of ceremony.
The film, recorded and animated over the course of eight years, is plagued by interruptions. Kids babble. Video games are played in the background. Toilets flush. A dog gives birth, and puppies squeal their distaste for being brought into the world. There’s no real polish here. That will inevitably put off viewers who feel documentary filmmaking to be an inherently formal affair. To those viewers, I say — nah. Seth’s style of animation would never lend itself to polish anyways, and the informality only serves to make some of the film’s messaging more salient. It’s unorthodox but extremely effective. The most vérité of cinema.
This is especially true in Peter’s discussions of the issues facing First Nations peoples in modern Canada. Seth says very early on that Peter is one of the greatest storytellers he’s ever met, and it’s easy to see why. But the lack of structure in these conversations is just as meaningful an asset as Peter’s oratorial abilities.
In more sophisticated fare, discussion of racist harassment by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would demand stats and video that most viewers would ignore anyway. Here, it’s as simple as two brothers talking about their day. With that relationship as the backdrop, the duo can tackle these serious topics just as casually and effectively as they can discuss the intricacies of the Toronto music scene or Manitoba wildlife.
The bottom line.
Endless Cookie is entirely unique, to the point where trying to examine it within the confines of traditional film criticism feels like a bit of a fool’s errand. Seth and Peter Sciver’s work doesn’t demand validation in the same way that the conversations you share with the people close to you don’t need to be analyzed by the masses. But in choosing to share it with an audience in such an utterly singular way, the brothers have managed something truly special.
Endless Cookie is now available to rent and buy digitally. Watch the trailer here.
Images courtesy of Obscured Pictures.
REVIEW RATING
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Endless Cookie - 9/10
9/10
Brogan is a Salt Lake City-based writer and film festival programmer who has watched more Scooby-Doo than the majority of the human population. You can find him on social media at @roboteatsdino or at roboteatsdinosaur.com
