Smoke Signals

National Catholic Reporter, July 17, 1998 by Joseph Cunneen

Another bumper crop of summer action movies ought to make us especially grateful for Smoke Signals (Miramax), a slyly humorous yet emotionally compelling first feature by Chris Eyre, a 28-year-old Cheyenne-Arapaho director. Its offbeat screenplay by Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, draws on characters from his collection of stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and offers a shrewdly loving commentary on contemporary Indian culture.

It's hard to think of another movie written, directed and co-produced by Native Americans that has received mainstream distribution, but don't go to "Smoke and the necessity of forgiveness. The movie is as willing to poke gentle fun at reservation life as to make up a comically defiant song about John Wayne's teeth.

It opens with a visual jolt: a baby flies through the air as fire destroys a house on the reservation after a night of heavy drinking in celebration of the Fourth of July. Arnold Joseph (Gary Farmer) manages to save the infant, but the child's parents die in the blaze. The pace slows, the mood relaxes: We have snapshots of everyday life among Coeur d'Alene Indians living in Idaho. The reservation radio announces that "It's a good day to be indigenous," and its traffic reporter, perched on top of a truck at the crossroads, comments ruefully, "Ain't no traffic, really."

The movie gradually zeros in on Victor Joseph (Adam Beach), Arnold's sullen, handsome son, and Thomas Builds-the-Fire (Evan Adams), the child Arnold saved, a bespectacled and braided storyteller, eager to be friends with Victor. He follows the silent Victor around, watching him play basketball, trying to nag him into conversation and friendship. But Victor is too torn by problems about his father to pay much attention.

In one of many powerful flashbacks, a 9-year-old Victor destroys his father's beer stash. When his mother, Arlene (Tantoo Cardinal), issues an ultimatum that the father stop drinking, Arnold takes off in his battered pickup, his son desperately running after him.

Back in the present, 10 years later, Arlene and Victor get the news that Arnold Joseph has died of a heart attack in Phoenix. Victor doesn't have the money to make the trip, but Thomas, always an who saved his life, to give Victor the amount needed -- if he can come along. Reluctantly, Victor agrees.

In the events and faces they encounter, the bus trip to Phoenix suggests how the United States can be a foreign country for Native Americans. But potential bitterness is dissolved in the ironically humorous tone that permeates the story. Victor complains that Thomas tells pointless stories and grins too much, and he tries to teach his eager friend that if he wants to be taken seriously as an Indian, he needs to scowl and "look like a warrior."

When they get to Phoenix, they learn more about Arnold Joseph from Suzy Song (Irene Bedard), a young Indian woman whom he had befriended. Victor cuts his hair as part of the customary mourning practice, but his feelings about his father are still conflicted. Suzy gives Victor an urn with his father's ashes, passes on a terrible secret and finally convinces him that his father not only bragged about him every day but really loved him.

Driving back to Idaho in the old pickup, Victor and Thomas are implicated in an auto accident whose physical and social complexities bring them closer together. Just before they reach home, Thomas once again nags Victor in his caring but tactless way: "Victor, why did your father leave home?" Instead of cutting him down as he had in the past, Victor looks at him steadily and replies: "He never meant to leave."

A new mood of serenity marks the reunion of Victor with his mother and Thomas with his grandmother. The conclusion is powerfully healing: There is the visual image of the river rushing through the reservation and Thomas' voice reciting poetic words about the difficulty and the necessity of forgiveness.

"Smoke Signals" shows a strong respect for ritual, even when it is lightheartedly praising Arlene's magic powers in making, fry bread. Although it benefits from the special likability of Adam Beach and Evan Adams in the lead roles, the director has elicited fine performances from all its actors. Brian Capener's photography captures the beauty of Western landscapes without arty self-consciousness. Composer B.C. Smith's stirring soundtrack includes traditional Indian drums and flutes as well as classical, rock, blues and country music. Serious yet unpretentious, the movie is so engaging we may not realize it's also helping us shed stereotyped notions of "movie Indians."