Smoke Signals

            We watched Smoke Signals in class. Afterwards, I decided to take a look at the IMDB.com page, see what it had to say. I wasn’t so much struck by what the site said about the film as by the general cover to the DVD case. I was rather hoping it would show Thomas in his braids, glasses, and suit. If that’s who the character truly is, they should have portrayed him as such. But that’s neither here nor there.

            I really enjoyed the movie. It had everything: fire, anger, comedy. What I really enjoyed was that there was no play or cheap shots on the fact that the story was based on Natives from a reservation. I felt heartbroken watching little Victor run after his father and telling him not to go. That’s not an “Indian” storyline. I could sympathize with the grief of Victor over what his father had failed to do. I could even further sympathize with the awful idea that Arnold was the cause of the fire that killed Thomas’s parents. Yes, it played off the stereotype that Natives are awful drunks. But that could be any race! I know white alcoholics, black alcoholics…it’s not just the story for one set of people. The movie also proved that alcoholism wasn’t an option for some people: like when Victor’s mother saw her young son destroying the truck and denounced their current lifestyle. It was a bit of the plotline that showed Natives can, just like everyone else, stop a bad habit and get better.

            My favorite part, as I’m sure I’m not alone in this, was Thomas. He cracked me up. He’d close his eyes and you knew a good story was coming. He was more like the older, stereotypical Natives, the one always telling stories. The best part of it though was the fact that the audience would assume that his stories had some grand meaning behind it, like a glimpse into an unknown fountain of truth. Usually, they were just silly stories or completely made up occurrences.

            Overall, I enjoyed it as a good movie as well as the point it was trying to make about contemporary Natives. It’s definitely a movie I wouldn’t mind having in my own collection.