Some movies are so good-natured that they stick in the memory and bring a smile to even the most jaded lips. It's been a few years since I last watched this indie, and on the surface, the road trip of a pair of Native Americans (to use the PC term) from Montana to Santa Fe may not sound like promising stuff. Buddy Red Bow played by A. Martinez is a reservation activist and when he opposes a land-grab operation, his sister in Santa Fe is jailed on trumped-up charges. Parenthetically here, I have seen Martinez, not overly striking, in other films and have wondered why he always uses the initial letter only; turns out his given name is Adolph -- so now we know!
He is part Indian on both sides of his family, but the memorable star of this film is a full-blooded one called Gary Farmer, a mountain of a man, who beautifully played an Indian named "Nobody" in the Johnny Depp starrer "Dead Man". Farmer was brutally teased as a kid by the other children, apart from Red Bow's jailed sister, and jumps at the chance to save her. Since he has just purchased a 1964 Buick rust-bucket (which he refers to as his warrior pony), Red Bow and he begin their journey; to Farmer it is also a chance to embrace his Cheyenne heritage and to visit the many sites on route which affirm who he is. There's not much more to the tale, but the pair's small adventures -- contrasting Red Bow's firecracker temper and Farmer's slow sweetness -- are both satisfying and entertaining.
1 comment:
Trouble with road movies is they make you feel restless - like you should be going out yourself on a journey, and that would be OK I guess, as long as you had a portable DVD player.....
Just seen Y tu mama tambien. It's almost how you'd wanted The Beach to be - the relaxed camera work and dialogue, and the strong colouring. The Beach was just trying to be too safe, but then that's how it is.
And the other thing you realise is how small our county is, and how long some of those journeys elsewhere can be, and that's why there's this romanticising of road trips.
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