![]() ![]() Western? You just might have something there.ĭeveloped at Sundance Labs, Smoke Signals won the Filmmaker’s Trophy at Sundance. But there are also “meta” references, where it’s clear that Alexie, as screenwriter, and Eyre, as director, are very well aware of the tropes they are using and overturning. In Smoke Signals, there is a strong, clear story. Like all of Alexie’s writing, Smoke Signals is self-aware, self-conscious, self-referential, perhaps one could say postmodern and not go too far. At the end of the film, Victor calls to his father, Arnold, from the bridge over a river, and we feel his release as he lets his father’s ashes go. Called to retrieve his dead father’s ashes, Victor goes on a quest to find his father, to make peace – if he can – with the legacy of an alcoholic, sometimes violent father who abandoned Victor and his mother. The scene ends with Victor and Thomas climbing into the backseat and with the car taking off in reverse – the only direction in which it goes.īut the film is much more than jokes, funny thought they may be. He plea bargained, and his ultimate charge was “being an Indian in the twentieth century.” When Victor asks the women what they think and whether this story is good enough to catch them a ride, one of the women says, “I think it is a fine example of the oral tradition.” Academics who teach Native American storytelling and literature are caught up short – they’re forever celebrating the Native American oral tradition – but those in the audience can’t help but laugh. Ever one to spin a yarn, Thomas launches into an account of Victor’s father, Arnold Joseph, being arrested for protesting against the Vietnam War. The women say they’ll consider the request but first need to hear a story. One of my favorite scenes is the one in which Victor and Thomas ask two young women on the reservation for a ride. While this scene is funny, it is also searing, as Alexie deftly skewers the stereotypes white Americans have of Indian people.Īlexie pulls off this double-edged humor again and again in the film. Thomas returns wearing a Fry Bread Power T-shirt, his braids unfurled, his gaze serious, and his walk a swagger. As they ride the bus to Arizona, Victor tutors Thomas in how to present himself as a “real Indian.” He needs to let his hair flow freely as a symbol of his warrior status, and he needs to wipe the goofy grin off his face. Victor and Thomas, as mismatched as they ever were as children, spar and play off each other – Victor the cool, stoic Indian, Thomas the geeky, ever-chatty storyteller who smiles too much. In that sense, it is a coming-of-age story of sorts – or perhaps more accurately, a coming-to-terms story.īut there are also many comic elements to the film, and the wry humor emerges in part because Smoke Signals is also a classic buddy road trip movie. Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? I suppose it is predominantly a drama, as Victor Joseph and his friend Thomas Builds-the-Fire travel from the Coeur d’Alene reservation in Washington to Phoenix, Arizona, to pick up his father’s remains. The film also includes characters who recur throughout Alexie’s other literary works. Written by Sherman Alexie and directed by Chris Eyre, the 1998 film is loosely based on Alexie’s first collection of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, published in 1993. Smoke Signals is the first – and as far as I know, only – feature-length, commercially distributed film written and directed by Native Americans with a fully Native American cast.
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