REVIEW: HBO's "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" (Airs 5/27/07)
HBO's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" is not a good film. It is a great film! It is perhaps the greatest film yet made about America's Indian Wars of the 1800s. The events and characters are all known to us; in fact, have become legendary. Sitting Bull and the Sioux Indians, William Tecumseh Sherman and the American Cavalry, Custer's Last Stand and the Wounded Knee Massacre are all part of our nation's mythology. Yet as with all legends, in time they become mere caricatures of the underlying reality on which they're based.
"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" does something very rare: it tells us a familiar story in such a fresh way that we are forced to see it with new eyes. The typical way of making a film on this topic is to dumb everything down to "white man evil, red man victim" or "red man savages, white man civilized." Yet this film deals with the complexities of these events in ways that make it impossible to make such simplistic judgements.
I found my sympathies continually shifting from red man to white man and back again. Over and over, back and forth. This is not an easy film. It does not give any answers but simply shows the reality of these tragic events from both the Indian and American perspectives. It is up to the viewer to decide what to make of it all.
I'm sure activists on both sides will dislike this film for this very reason. This film doesn't take sides. It shows the good and the bad of all those involved. It shows the missed opportunities and arrogance of both sides. It shows two cultures who seem unable to fully comprehend the other's needs. Sitting Bull seems unable or unwilling to accept that his world has changed forever and will never go back to the way it was. His resistance to this change leads him and his people to unnecessary hardships and his own eventual destruction.
Yet the Americans seem just as unable or unwilling to accept that it is not necessary to strip Indians of their culture and identity in order for them to participate fully and equally in American society. One can be both Indian and American without contradiction just as surely as one can be both Irish and American.
"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" is a smart film. It is an important film. It is a film that needed to be made and now it has been made. It says what needed to be said in exactly the way it needed to be said. The only problem with this film is that it is not being released theatrically. This film deserves to be on the big screen so that our entire nation can relearn what we thought we already knew.
For more info and to view the trailer visit the link below:
http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/
Note: This review was based on a prescreening copy sent by the filmmakers for review purposes.
"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" does something very rare: it tells us a familiar story in such a fresh way that we are forced to see it with new eyes. The typical way of making a film on this topic is to dumb everything down to "white man evil, red man victim" or "red man savages, white man civilized." Yet this film deals with the complexities of these events in ways that make it impossible to make such simplistic judgements.
I found my sympathies continually shifting from red man to white man and back again. Over and over, back and forth. This is not an easy film. It does not give any answers but simply shows the reality of these tragic events from both the Indian and American perspectives. It is up to the viewer to decide what to make of it all.
I'm sure activists on both sides will dislike this film for this very reason. This film doesn't take sides. It shows the good and the bad of all those involved. It shows the missed opportunities and arrogance of both sides. It shows two cultures who seem unable to fully comprehend the other's needs. Sitting Bull seems unable or unwilling to accept that his world has changed forever and will never go back to the way it was. His resistance to this change leads him and his people to unnecessary hardships and his own eventual destruction.
Yet the Americans seem just as unable or unwilling to accept that it is not necessary to strip Indians of their culture and identity in order for them to participate fully and equally in American society. One can be both Indian and American without contradiction just as surely as one can be both Irish and American.
"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" is a smart film. It is an important film. It is a film that needed to be made and now it has been made. It says what needed to be said in exactly the way it needed to be said. The only problem with this film is that it is not being released theatrically. This film deserves to be on the big screen so that our entire nation can relearn what we thought we already knew.
For more info and to view the trailer visit the link below:
http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/
Note: This review was based on a prescreening copy sent by the filmmakers for review purposes.
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