While watching “Smoke Signals,” you may pause in wonder that this is the first commercial film directed, written, produced and starring Indians (a term the movie consistently uses). The odd part isn’t seeing so much American Indian life up on the screen; it’s the realization that a culture so rich in storytelling has taken so long to get there.
After all, “Smoke Signals” isn’t some inaccessible piece of work that needs decoding to be appreciated by a mainstream audience. The story is good-humored and in line with what we consider to be classic “American” tales; it covers the struggle to maintain cultural distinctiveness within mainstream society, as well as the difficulty of coming to terms with a dark past while taking responsibility for the future.
We’ve seen these themes in tales about immigrants and minority groups before. This time, however, the main characters represent the cultures that were already here before the immigrants shunted them aside.
Thomas Builds-the-Fire (Evan Adams) and Victor Joseph (Adam Beach) live on the Coeur d’Alene reservation in Idaho; the tribe’s main activity had been fishing, though as one character says, “This ain’t `Dances With Salmon.’ ” After a 4th of July party in 1976, a fire in Thomas’ house killed his parents. Victor’s father, Arnold (Gary Farmer), saved infant Thomas, but a decade of drinking later, Arnold took off in his pickup truck never to return.
In present day, Victor and his mother, Arlene (Tantoo Cardinal), receive word that Arnold has died in his trailer home in Phoenix. Victor has grown up to be an athletic, handsome, show-no-pain type. Thomas is quirkier, wearing Pippi Longstocking braids, oversized glasses and a buttoned-up suit, and telling fanciful stories in his breathless sing-songy voice.
The effeminate Thomas irritates Victor, especially when he tactlessly probes why Arnold abandoned the family, but when Thomas offers to help pay Victor’s way to Phoenix as long as he can tag along, Victor accepts.
Sherman Alexie, a well-regarded young novelist, adapted the screenplay from his short-story collection “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,” and first-timer Chris Eyre directed. What they bring to “Smoke Signals” is an easygoing style, a healthy sense of irreverence, a welcome lack of preachiness and a grounding in a world unfamiliar to most moviegoers.
You can’t escape the sense that the reservation — or “the rez,” as its inhabitants call it — is a byproduct of callous government policies. Yet Alexie and Eyre don’t waste time scoring obvious points; instead, they’re candid in exploring the prevalent drinking and poverty, and the challenge of breaking those bad cycles.
Even so, the story isn’t a litany of social ills; it’s more like a tale Thomas would tell, filled with casual observations and details such as the appreciation of home-cooked “frybread.” As is true with Thomas’ yarns about Arnold’s past, the texture of the telling is as important as the plot, so Alexie populates the movie with colorful characters, such as two young women who like driving backward and the KREZ disc jockey who proclaims, “It’s a good day to be indigenous,” before switching to a traffic reporter who’s just a guy sitting atop a van in a quiet rural intersection.
In the road-movie section of “Smoke Signals,” Victor and Thomas work out their differences as they hitchhike, ride buses and walk to Phoenix, where Arnold’s trailer, pickup truck and friendly companion, Suzy (Irene Bedard), await them. Victor must learn to confront his feelings toward his father. Thomas must learn to let down his braided hair and to quit wearing such a goofy grin.
“Indians aren’t supposed to smile like that,” Victor tells him. “Get stoic.”
Alexie and Eyre aren’t breaking any barriers with the movie’s structure and odd-couple dynamics, though at least they don’t feel compelled to throw in a love story. Their relative inexperience as filmmakers also shows around the edges. The revelations don’t pack quite the wallop they could, and some symbolic gestures — like one character’s cutting his hair so he looks like he’s wearing a Beatles wig — remain murky.
You also don’t get a great sense of what Victor’s and Thomas’ everyday lives have been like in their early 20s or what made Thomas quite such an odd duck (though his look-alike grandmother seems a key factor). Still, Beach portrays Victor as a likable, charismatic brooder, and Adams, with his off-kilter rhythms and soft features, makes a distinctive impression as Thomas.
The bearish Farmer also brings heart and dimension to Arnold, who could have turned out as just another bullying father. Cardinal infuses Arlene with a lived-in weariness, and Bedard emanates warmth as Suzy.
“Smoke Signals,” the winner of this year’s Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy, has an ironic title, playing to Indian stereotypes rather than reality. Alexie and Eyre understand that some notions are tough to shake, so you might as well get a laugh from them. As Thomas watches flickering images on a black-and-white television set, he can’t help but observe, “The only thing more pathetic than Indians on TV is Indians watching Indians on TV.”
”SMOKE SIGNALS”
(star) (star) (star)
Directed by Chris Eyre; written by Sherman Alexie, based on stories from his book “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”; photographed by Brian Capener; edited by Brian Berdan; production designed by Charles Armstrong; music by BC Smith; produced by Scott Rosenfelt, Larry Estes. A Miramax Films release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:29. MPAA rating: PG-13 (some intense images).
THE CAST
Victor Joseph ……………. Adam Beach
Thomas Builds-the-Fire ……. Evan Adams
Suzy Song ……………….. Irene Bedard
Arnold Joseph ……………. Gary Farmer
Arlene Joseph ……………. Tantoo Cardinal
Young Victor Joseph ………. Cody Lightning
