“Four Faces of the Moon” by Amanda Strong follows the protagonist, Spotted Fawn, as she travels through space and time to reconnect with her ancestors, history, and culture. The short animation allows for the narrative to span across time and space in a way that the rigidity of live-action might prevent. It bridges the slaughter of the buffalo with residential schools as well as how the intergenerational trauma continues to live through Spotted Fawn as she tries to preserve her family’s history. The digital medium also allows for Strong to blend elements of the past and the present into overlapping or singular shots that narrates a story through visuals just as equally as voice narration.
Spotted Fawn is closely associated with Strong and her family history, thus this animated film is both her chosen medium of preservation yet fluid storytelling. Strong incorporates imagery of the buffalo in many ways in order to tell a story of a tragedy and establish Indigenous futurity despite it. In the third phase of the film, a shot that overlaps the grandfather character’s eye with a buffalo’s eye establishes a tie between the family and buffalo as they were once a vital part of their survival. In the fourth phase, we then see Spotted Fawn reunite with her grandmother while sowing seeds in the land and seeing the buffalo roam free. In a way this can be seen as a reimagination — what if the buffalo were never slaughtered?
Cindy Tekobbe explains that “Indigenous stories are not reified as fact; rather, stories are fluid, layered knowledge practices” (39). “Four Faces of the Moon” demonstrates how Strong’s depiction and reimagination of the historical event follows said fluid nature while layering ancestral knowledge with her own. Through this film, she argues for a land that is full of buffalos and is able to sustain Indigenous communities. This is cemented by the final shot as we see a spear fly overhead Spotted Fawn, implying its rush to the next phase, or rather, the future. Additionally, Tekobbe explains how storytelling carries a way of knowing that can extend beyond the limits of the story (40). Strong achieves this through the sowing of seeds and the flying spear, both of which speak to means of survival once upon a time, but also convey an idea of reclamation of land and identity as well as Indigenous futurity.
The film’s strength in a way becomes its weakness. Digital media makes accessible the sharing of stories, with the art of animation and digital effects adding depth and meaning. Yet, the digital medium does not allow it to be fluid over time. If knowledge were to be layered onto “Four Faces of the Moon,” it will become a new story in its own right rather than the original moving with time. The medium prevents the story from gaining knowledge that is added and passed down by the tellers.
Works Cited:
Tekobbe, Cindy. “Indigenous Storytelling and Ways of Thinking and Being.” Indigenous Voices in Digital Spaces Cindy Tekobbe, Utah State University Press, Logan, 2025, pp. 32–51.
“‘Four Faces of the Moon’ - Canada’s Dark Colonial Past | Animated Short Doc.” YouTube, CBC, 21 Mar. 2017, youtu.be/rWe--sysNkk?si=ohpw4JKv5Yf3VUHR.
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