'The Exiles' is a reminder of true independent film

Once upon a time, an independent film was a gritty, edgy, highly individual work about human interaction. And it was often distinctive to the town or state or region where it was filmed.

The term "low-budget" meant it was made for just a few thousand dollars (often with the filmmaker maxing out credit cards or getting a second mortgage), it was often shot on 16mm film — which gave it a grainy look, especially in night sequences — and the naturalistic performances sometimes bordered on amateurish.

But what they lacked in polish, these films made up for with heart, with a sense of realism, with stories and dialogue that audiences readily recognized, and, hopefully, with which they identified.

Today, an independent film is more likely to have a slick look, polished performances and will likely embrace a cliche-ridden movie genre ("Paranormal Activity," anyone?). What's more, you can't go to a modern "independent" without an inordinate amount of publicity having already given you too much information and unrealistically raised your expectations.

I remember vividly the excitement of sitting down to view the competition films at the United States Film Festival in Salt Lake City (before it moved to Park City and became the Sundance Film Festival), knowing little or nothing about them. And that sense of discovery continued for several years in subsequent festivals until it eventually gave way to Hollywood-style slickness.

But that sense of discovery resurfaced as I watched "The Exiles," a long unseen independent feature by the late Kent Mackenzie that has been revived on DVD (Milestone, 1961, two discs, b/w, $29.95).

The film chronicles 12 hours in the life of several displaced Native Americans, transplants from Southwestern reservations living in the Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles.

The integrated stories are about real disenfranchised people, a couple of whom offer up internal feelings with soft-spoken monologues, pondering hopes, dreams and the world left behind.

Especially poignant is Yvonne (Yvonne Williams), who is pregnant and more or less "exiled" from the rest of "The Exiles" as she plays housekeeper to her boyfriend (Homer Nish) and several other Indian men in a communal living situation — fixing their evening meal before being shunted off to go to a movie while they head out for a night of drunken debauchery and male bonding.