LITTLE CAUGHNAWAGA: TO BROOKLYN AND BACK (D: Reaghan Tarbell, Canada). 57 minutes. October 16, 3 pm, Al Green Theatre. Rating: NNN
Reaghan Tarbell‘s documentary explores the largely unknown connection between the Kahnawake lands of southern Quebec and the skyscrapers of Manhattan. In the 1920s, Mohawk iron workers journeyed from the former to build the latter, establishing a temporary community in Brooklyn.
It’s a fascinating story, though Tarbell only spends about half of her movie on it. The rest focuses on a 2007 commemoration of the centenary of a Quebec bridge collapse that claimed the lives of 75 Mohawk workers, which isn’t quite as germane to her thesis as Tarbell thinks it is.
