Plans to expand a golf course into Native American territory leads to a state of siege in Quebec in this intense documentary. Very striking is the way the native Mohawks are treated like terrorists during the siege, with such horrific police brutality that one citizen states "and they call us savages!"; journalists were treated no better either, with one journalist realising that he has to go into military custody if he wants medical treatment. Shocking as all this may be, the film is structured in an unhelpful manner. It is nearly half an hour in before we are given background information about the Mohawk people and the invasions that lead to the titular 270 years of resistance. This would have better served as an introduction. The film may have also benefited from further highlighting how silly the military intervention is; it is, after all, hard to believe that all the chaos came from a mere few insisting on expanding a golf course. This is in turn makes it an important film as a reminder that mistreatment of native peoples still happens today. This is not the easiest film to watch; it is very gloomy and sometimes a little too angry for its own good, but it is amazing to think how brutal a democratic country like Canada was as recently as less than thirty years ago - or at one Mohawk man says, "this is ridiculous; this is not Russia, this is not Nazi Germany... this is Canada".

I loved it, there is finally something out there to tell about the injustice suffered by the native peoples. I hope that it helps to serve as a beacon to inspire others. To get the entire story and look at all the facts carefully. A previous comment questioned about the shots and so forth well if you look at the credits carefully it lists a LOT of camera operators. Originally this film had more then 6hrs worth of footage due to all the people with a camera working on this. Think of the editing that had to go into this in order to drop it down to the alloted time. The barricades were claimed as being impenetrable but they were necessary and they were strong. They needed to be in order to rival the equipment the military brought in that were a bit of an overkill on the governments part.

This is a pretty intense experience, especially if you know nothing about the subject matter. A community of Mohawks form a road block to prevent local land developers from turning their ancestral burial grounds into a golf course. Incredibly, the Canadian government sends in tanks and soldiers to break them up. Negotiations fail, and events escalate to an astonishing degree. I kept assuming that things couldn't get any worse, and each time they they did. Eventually we have the Canadian Army beating up an old man and stabbing a teenage girl with a bayonet. It's incredible to watch, given that Canada has a reputation as a warm and fuzzy nation.I guess the only problem with this film is that it's heavily slanted toward the Mohawks and their supporters. We rarely get to hear the alternative opinions from the other side, from the Quebecois who became so angry that they threw rocks at cars, and the soldiers who behaved with such brutality. Why was there so much anger? It would have been useful to know. And the filmmaker never explains who she is and why she is able to film everything on both sides of the supposedly impenetrable siege fence with good quality sound and images. I'm sure there are answers to these questions but the documentary's naive use of an omniscient narrator avoids answering them.Still, you come out of this shaking with anger and ashamed of the Canadian government. A '10 years on' documentary would be interesting.

I just came back from a screening of this film for a Canadian film class. Although one can have an understanding that terrible things happen all the time that you never hear about, it's still very disturbing and upsetting to finally see these things for yourself. The standoff documented in this movie occurred only 13 years ago. I guess the liberal 90's have created such a sugar coated view of Canada that the carnage of this movie seem surreal. The media was restricted access to record the events; citizens of the country were completely robbed of their basic rights; and a community sank to very low levels of existence.This film serves as a reminder that one's rights are not as infallible as you are led to believe. The soldiers were pawns throughout the entire ordeal, but that does not excuse their unnecessary acts of violence. Some of the town's people behaved like savages (Throwing stones at Natives leaving the area). I can't understand how people like that can live with themselves. All this over a golf course/ p***ing contest. Watch it if you get the chance, especially if you're patriotic. I still think Canada is among the best places to live in the world. But injustice and idiocy are not easily avoided.