‘It helps my heart’

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This article was published 22/10/2016 (3298 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s a lot to be said for making a dignified exit.

And there’s much more to be said — and admired, and applauded — about a farewell filled with passion and purpose and poetic beauty and a desire to make a difference.

Gord Downie accomplishes all of that, and more, with the CBC special The Secret Path, which airs Sunday at 9 p.m., and is the companion piece to a like-titled graphic novel and album release.

The animated special, which will air commercial-free, tells the story of 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack, who died half a century ago while trying to walk home to Ogoki Post in northwestern Ontario after fleeing the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora.

The multi-platform project is, according to the 52-year-old performer best known as the frontman of the Tragically Hip, a statement he needed to make. Downie announced in March he is battling terminal brain cancer, a diagnosis that sparked the Hip’s emotional cross-country arena tour during the summer.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever done,” Downie says in the special’s opening moments. “And by ‘best,’ I just mean that it helps my heart a little bit. This is what I want to do. Nothing else really matters to me.”

The Secret Path opens with aerial images of the northwestern Ontario wilderness, as Downie travels to Ogoki Post to meet with Wenjack’s sisters. His arrival is a welcome event, as it creates an opportunity to tell a story the women have long been determined to share with the outside world.

“I had no idea how I was going to do that,” says Pearl Wenjack, “but I trusted, I knew that something would come about in time.

“Who would ever (have) thought,” she adds with a laugh, “…the Tragically Hip?”

And with that, The Secret Path shifts from live-action documentary to animated musical video; the story of Chanie Wenjack’s horrific residential-school experience and ill-fated attempt to escape is told in 10 short chapters, each punctuated by a Downie song inspired by Wenjack’s ordeal.

The images are cold and stark, simple animation that’s reminiscent of many National Film Board projects layered with music that is mostly sombre and driven by Downie’s imagery-laden poetry.

Illustrator Jeff Lemire opts for dour blacks and blue-greys as Wenjack’s trek through the wilderness is recounted; whenever the boy dreams of home and family, however, the animation comes alive with warm yellows and greens and welcoming earth-toned reminders.

The story of Wenjack’s flight is told in a straightforward, linear fashion, beginning with his decision to flee the school’s abusive treatment and ending with his inevitable death after succumbing to hunger and exposure while attempting to follow the railway line he believed would steer him toward home.

If bleakness can ever be described as beautiful, this might be the moment.

The Secret Path ends with another live-action sequence, which follows Downie and Wenjack’s sisters as they visit the boy’s gravesite and sit for a while to discuss what Chanie’s life meant and might continue to mean.

The meeting, which took place just a week after the Hip’s nationally televised final concert in Kingston, Ont., most likely will serve as Downie’s final public goodbye. Just last week in an interview with CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, Downie said the disease has already affected his memory.

“He is the right person to tell the story,” Pearl Wenjack says of Downie, “because the Creator chose him. We didn’t; I didn’t. And I’m glad it was Gord, because he will be forever remembered.”

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @BradOswald