When most people sign up for a Disney+ subscription, theyre probably thinking about catching up with Disney Channel Originals they loved as kids or watching the latest Marvel movie at home. For most, Disney+ means access to endless streams of frothy entertainment, with social issues presented in the form of cartoon allegories like Zootopia. The documentaries that get pushed to the front page tend to be self-mythologizing stories such as the behind-the-scenes Marvel Disassembled series or beautiful nature pictures.Most of those nature films come via National Geographic, an underappreciated wing of the Disney+ service. In addition to showing the beauty of the natural world, National Geographic also offers films about pressing social issues with more complexity than an animated rabbitfilms like Sugarcane, one of five nominees for this years Best Documentary Oscar.Sugarcane is not like most movies on Disney+. An investigation into the abuses committed against First Nations peoples at an Indian residential school operated by the Catholic Church of Canada, Sugarcane exists to tell the truth about horrific crimes. Yet its because these crimes happened to humansand people who still exist and whose legacy continuesthat Sugarcane must be watched.Uncovering the TruthI felt dirty as an Indian all my life, says Martina Pierre, grand-aunt of Sugarcane co-director Julian Brave NoiseCat. The Residential School taught us that.Once an open, shameful secret across North America, residential and boarding schools that were used to force Christianity and assimilation onto Indigenous children have become a prominent subject matter in popular culture. Episodes of Reservation Dogs and True Detective: Night Country deal with the phenomenon, as does Tommy Oranges most recent novel, Wandering Stars. However, all of these works have the distance of fiction to ease the truth. Sugarcane offers no such escape. NoiseCat and co-director Emily Kassie do not flinch from the details that get uncovered after the discovery of an unmarked grave outside of St. Josephs Mission in Williams Lake, BC, Canada. Even though the school closed in 1981, the horrors committed there linger still, most directly in the form of NoiseCats troubled father Ed.Sugarcane begins with NoiseCat phoning Ed on his birthday and inviting him to come along on the investigation. In particular, Ed hopes to close what he calls a gap in his childhood, some explanation for why his father abandoned him and his mother left him at St. Josephs. A soulful man, rarely seen without his stylish hat, ever-present cigarettes, and a braid across his chest, Ed strikes viewers as an aging hippie or punk rocker, someone with a cynical smile who will suddenly start singing a Neil Young number. Yet when faced with memories of what occurred, not just to him, but to other survivors he meets, Eds facade breaks. Despite his best efforts, the tears come quickly, reminding us that the scars of the past have yet to heal.Across GenerationsShortly after the visit with Martina Pierre, NoiseCat confronts his father about his own childhood. NoiseCat tries to tell Ed that he too was abandoned by his dad, that he and Ed share this quality, even if Ed was the perpetrator. NoiseCat cannot stop crying enough to make a more impassioned charge, and while Ed sputters out a defense and offers an apology, tears quickly drown his words. The moment doesnt end in any sort of resolution. We see the two separate to work through their feelings. The next day, they travel on, avoiding the subject.But lest any of us watching from the outside feel compelled to judge Ed, Sugarcane puts his life in larger context. For their next stop, the father and son visit Eds bully at the school, a boy who broke his cheekbone. Instead of finding a brute, the two find yet another man broken in childhood, left at the school by his mother and molested by the same priest to whom he gave confession. Theres no anger in Eds response. He just bows his head as he listens, understanding that the two of them are victims.This ability to circle beyond Ed and NoiseCats experience gives Sugarcane its strength. We also see Rick Gilbert, a former Williams Lake First Nations Chief and true believer in Catholicism, despite the abuses he endured, visit Vatican City for a reconciliation event. Likewise, we see current Williams Lake First Nations Chief Willie Sellars, who uses the news of the unmarked graves to gain attention for continued mistreatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Gilbert and Sellars manage to get responses from people on the top, folks like Pope Francis and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. These are institutional leaders who, at last, will admit to Indigenous people that their institutions did a grave and profound wrong. But the Indigenous never hear the word reparations uttered, nor about concrete actions to help the victims.Instead the only catharsis Sugarcane offers comes through the findings of investigator Charlene Belleau and archeologist Whitney Spearing. Throughout the movie, we see the two of them pouring through archival records and calling potential leads, doing the sort of searching youd find in a procedural TV show. These two provide the closest thing to justice, when they find a man willing to confess to burying the bodies of incinerated infants at a priests commands, or an elderly woman who fights through the effects of Parkinsons Disease to identify another grave site.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!The Beauty of JusticeYes, Sugarcane is difficult to watch, unsparing in its pursuit of the truth. But it is also very beautiful.The cinematography from co-director Kassie and director of photography Christopher LaMarca makes every space look rich and dynamic. Light falling on Belleaus profile deepens the lines on her face, underscoring the determination in her eyes and the compassion she gives the victims. The mountains and forests through which NoiseCat and Ed travel have never looked more majestic, especially as Ed reminds viewers, Everything you see is Indian land.Most of all, Sugarcane is beautiful because it loves its subjects. It takes time to show NoiseCat dancing at a ceremony, to show Gilbert sitting in a pew, to show Sellars going fishing with his children. Just the sight of Gilberts child reclining on a rock and watching the water flow by is enough to make Sugarcane a worthwhile watch.The beauty of seeing kids be kids makes the rest of Sugarcane more urgent, demanding that justice be done for those who had their childhood taken from them and ensuring that the next generation gets to live in peace.Sugarcane is now streaming on Disney+.