Based on Sherman Alexie's novel, "Tonto and the Lone Ranger Fist Fight in Heaven," Chris Eyre's "Smoke Signals" heralds itself as the first feature film written by, directed by, acted by and about Native Americans. The film garnered both the Audience Award and the Filmmaker's Trophy at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. Although its plot lacks originality -- it is essentially a road trip-adventure movie and a buddy film -- "Smoke Signals" offers a truly unique vista of life on a contemporary American Indian Reservation.
These are not your typical celluloid Indians. They don't sit in teepee smoking clay pipes, they don't hunt buffalo and they don't tussle with cowboys. They are as equally at home playing basketball and eating at Denny's as they are eating frybread and telling stories about their ancestors.
The film opens on the bicentennial of the United States, July 4, 1976. While the rest of the country celebrates, a fire rages on the D'Alene Indian Reservation in Idaho. A dying couple throws their infant son Thomas (Evan Adams) out of the second story window of their burning home into the arms of their neighbor Arnold Joseph (Gary Farmer).
In the years following the fire, Arnold's drinking worsens until his wife Arlene (Tantoo Cardinal) throws him out of the house. He disappears from the reservation, effectively abandoning his son Victor (Adam Beach).
Now, 20 years after the fire, Victor learns that his father has died in a trailer park in the desert outside of Phoenix. So Victor, along with his unwelcome companion Thomas, leaves the reservation for the first time to recover the ashes of Arnold Joseph. What follows is true to the typical road adventure format. They meet weird people, and they are harassed by racist rednecks. Their journey evolves into a sort of pilgrimage in which they explore, not only the world outside the reservation, but their relationship with each other and the value of forgiveness.
Victor, bitter over his father's abandonment and the hand life has dealt him, tries to be the Indian of movies. He rarely smiles and is wary of strangers. Thomas, on the other hand, can't shut up. He sees himself as a visionary and a prophet. He smiles incessantly and tells Victor, and anyone who will listen, long allegorical tales about everything from Victor's father to frybread.
Victor is annoyed by Thomas's geeky ways and his lionization of Arnold Joseph. He tries to teach Thomas how to act like an Indian. He tells him, "Indians ain't supposed to smile. Get stoic." Thomas in turn tries to teach him how to forgive his father.
Both Adam Beach (Victor) and Evan Adams (Thomas) give strong performances. They interact much like an Indian odd-couple teaching and annoying each other .
Admittedly, Thomas's nasal and droning voice may grow to sound like nails on a chalkboard. And Eyres' gratuitous use of flashbacks about Arnold Joseph unnecessarily complicates what is a straightforward narrative.
However, you'll laugh when they hitchhike across the reservation in a car that only drives in reverse or when they annoy people on the bus by chanting songs about John Wayne's false teeth. You'll empathize with Victor's struggle to come to terms with his father's abandonment and with Thomas when he seeks Victor's approval. There are also some fun cameos to look forward to from some of the cast members of "Northern Exposure" and a brief appearance by Tom Skeritt (TV's "Picket Fences") as the police chief.
Eyres aptly balances comedy with self-reflection. This is not a movie about victimization or a lamentation of the ails of indigenous people. It is a highly personal story about reconciling heritage with individuality and the future with the past. Regardless, you'll learn more than you knew before about frybread.
