Native American Films

One of the things that Sterlin Harjo said to us at the screening of his new film Barking Waters was about themes in Native American films. He reiterated the fact that Native American films often deal with the theme of death, and I have yet to find an example otherwise of that theme. So far I’ve seen four Native American films, three of which were for this course, the other was for a native studies class I took with Theda Purdue two years ago. After seeing the movies Barking Waters, Doe Boy, and Four Sheets to the Wind for this course, as well as Smoke Signals for my other class, I really began to believe Sterlin’s ideas about the theme of death in Native American films. Not only that, but I began to see another theme slowly emerge- the theme of finding or reconnecting with ones’ past and identity.
The first film we watched was Sterlin Harjo’s second feature-length film Barking Waters. The movie, which follows the trail of an elderly pair/former couple, Irene and Frankie, as they take Frankie home to see his family one last time to die. Throughout the film, Irene and Frankie are confronted with ideas and people that challenge or affirm their identity as Native Americans. They run into a white man who doesn’t understand the healing processes of their native culture, and who makes racist and snide comments at them, but in the end comes to make a real connection with them. Irene and Frankie, an estranged couple, find solace and absolution between one another as they bring Frankie home to die. Their relationship, twice torn, becomes mended, the closer and closer they come to Frankie’s death. While identity is not as prevalent a theme as death is in Barking Waters, I think that identity was an equally important theme as death in the film Doe Boy.
The film Doe Boy by Randy Redroad tackled very difficult subjects including illness in Indian communities and the identity associated with those sicknesses. The films main character, Hunter, wrestles the entire time with his sickness and how it affects his identity and how he relates to his family, friends, and his neighbors. Hunter struggles with his name, and his inability to live up to the great stigma that has become associated with it. Being one of two hemophiliacs in the state of Oklahoma, Hunter has to take great caution in anything he does, but he often makes foolhardy attempts at being a man, by picking fights with other testosterone filled boys or men like himself. Hunter struggles to become a man in a community that is defined by the relationships between father and son while hunting. That relationship, which is already rocky, comes to a halt when his father is killed accidentally by hunters. Hunter wants to prove himself to his father and the community by finally killing a buck, and whether or not he succeeds does not matter, because the whole movie is all about identity and Hunters struggle to come to terms with his. I think this theme is prevalent in other films, like Smoke Signals; the main character struggles to accept his identity after his father’s death as well.
Sterlin Harjo’s first feature length film was the final film we watched during our film festival, and the themes were similar to that of Smoke Signals and Doe Boy, with more emphasis on family dynamic. A family struggles to maintain loving relationships with one another after the suicide of their father. The son and struggles to maintain a relationship with both his mother and his sister, both of whom are struggling to cope with the loss of their father. All of these relationships intertwine with the father’s narration, which deals heavily in native culture and storytelling. These themes all collide to provide an interesting look into the native American family, once its been torn apart by tragedy.
All of these films dealt with the themes of death and identity in ways that I didn’t know could be dealt with. I honestly did not believe Sterlin when he said that a lot of Indian films were about death, but after seeing all of these, it’s safe to say I’m a believer.