Two Spirits (Lydia Nibley, 2009): USA

Reviewed by Jonas Pedersen Hardebrant. Viewed at Victoria Hall, at Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

The Navajo Indians believe that there are instead of two, four different genders. There are males and females but you can also be a female-male or a male-female. These beliefs go as far back as you can record and makes the Navajos special in that matter. Today it is more and more common and accepted to be gay, lesbian or transvestites, but their beliefs is not about that. These “two spirited” men and women are as “normal” as everyone else, but with a different gender.

In Two Spirits first time filmmaker Lydia Nibley uncover the story about the traditions of the Navajo through the story about Fred Martinez, who was born as a male-female. In interviews with his mother we are told about how she saw the progress from how Fred, from being a male, transformed into being a male-female. As the tradition among Navajo Indians is to embrace all four sorts of genders, so did Fred’s family. But even though it was a relief for Fred to share his secret with the family, he also got a warning from his older brother who told him “you got to be careful”. He knew that even though the Navajos accept people no matter how they dress and act, other cultures might not.

Sadly but true, the older brothers word came into action when an man brutally killed Fred after a night at a festival with some friends. He hunted Fred down and smashed his head, several times with a stone, and later on bragging about how he “bug-smashed a fag” among his friends.

The movie is quite well done and most certainly it is hard to not get emotionally attached when you listen to the sad story from the victims mother. And also you see private footage and hear how people talk about their traditions and how Fred was as normal as any other 16 year old. But unfortunately the story gets to messy and to be almost a little bit brutal you don’t see the message.

Leaving the theatre you know a lot about how the Navajo traditions and how the Navajos see themselves with the gender culture, but that’s it. We are told about the horrifying story about how a young boy gets brutally killed but then you have interviews with people about the beliefs, who for whatever I know, don’t even know about the Fred story.

Sure this is an important subject to bring light on but I think that Nibley could have done it with a little bit better finesse than just putting together the footage she has taken. It feels like a rushed work and the short interviews and opinions are often there just to fill up the spaces to make it a documentary in length. Hopefully Nibley who seems to be a very charismatic and humble woman, learns from her mistakes because to make a 65 minute long documentary you need to have enough facts and interesting opinions and viewpoints to make it interesting. So even though it is an interesting subject, this documentary gets boring and confusing to an extent that unfortunately makes it unworthy to watch. If you want to learn about the gender in Navajo traditions, Google it, it will save you the time and energy.