In North Dakota, the story of Hazel Miner still echoes.
While rural North Dakota is still not an easy place to live, in March of 1920 it was a place where one small mistake could lead to tragedy. With brutal winters and only on the cusp of modern conveniences, a white-out blizzard had all the makings of just such a potential tragedy.
A teenager and the eldest of three siblings, Hazel (Madelyn Dundon) is a warm-and-fuzzy girl in a locale that often requires hardened grit. Her father, William (Stelio Savante), has little tolerance for his daughter's softness.
It is into this framework that Hazel's Heart is born.
Savante was essential in bringing the compelling story of Hazel Miner to life. Serving as both co-star and executive producer for the film, Savante's turn as William here is the Savante we've come to know throughout the course of his four decades in motion pictures. Convincing both as the gruff, unforgiving father and the relentlessly devoted man doing whatever it takes to save his children, Savante adds much of the electricity that engagingly moves Hazel's Heart forward.
While Savante is inarguably the most well known name here, the film's, well, heart truly does belong to Madelyn Dundon as the teenage Hazel. In Hazel's Heart, Hazel is called upon to help her younger siblings survive after they get lost in a dangerous blizzard with only a semi-covered wagon to help them survive.
Released on video on demand (VOD) this week by Samuel Goldwyn Films, Hazel's Heart can be, and should be, streamed on all your usual streamers including Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play/YouTube Movies, Fandango-At-Home, Versant, Vubiquity, and DirecTV/AT&T.
Hazel's Heart is in many ways a simple film about seemingly simple things like faith, love, sacrifice, and, at least in my eyes, the value of the gifts that we all bring to the table. Seemingly unfit for life in North Dakota, Hazel Miner's life has come to define it.
Writer/director Daniel Bielinski understands that life. He's a North Dakota-based filmmaker/storyteller with six kids of his own. Having shot the film in North Dakota, Bielinski has captured both the grittiness of North Dakota and the remarkable strength that comes out of community. Bielinski immerses us in the blinding confusion of this snowstorm, an experience not always comfortable yet always essential and effective.
Dundon, it must be noted, is a quiet revelation here with equal parts vulnerability and strength. What compels a young girl always deemed overly fragile to both use that fragility as a sort of superpower to courageously and sacrificially lean into her faith knowing its potential outcome? This is the question we find ourselves asking over and over and over again throughout the 90-minute Hazel's Heart.
Among the supporting players, young Xavier Bielinski gives an inspired performance as young Emmet Miner with Genevieve Bielinski right there beside him as Myrdith. As both wife and mother, Laurie Fortier adds both tenderness and grace to the unfolding story.
Original music by Will Van De Crommert captures both the gravity and the deep humanity of Bielinski's storytelling. Lensing by Gareth Paul Cox is immersive and emotionally resonant from beginning to end.
With a monument near the Oliver County Courthouse still honoring her sacrifice to this day, Hazel Miner's story is one that should be told and deserves to be told. Daniel Bielinski tells that story with simplicity, honesty, dignity, and an abundance of faith and love.
Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic
