Skinwalkers

I just caught this on PBS for the first time and immediately noticed all the errors and shortcomings I had planned to document before seeing they had been mentioned by viewers already. Morris Bitsie in particular has commented accurately, as have all the people who vastly preferred the book(s).

It just begs the question to have the benefit of Tony Hillerman's own acknowledgement in the afterword that the process of making a movie is very different from that of writing a novel. But to see the movie set on the low desert instead of the high plateau of the Navajo nation is almost as sacrilegious as giving short shrift to the actual language, religion, and culture of the Dine themselves.

As a former student at Northern Arizona University with many friends on the nation, I was dismayed to see Hillerman's sensitive and intricate plot and characters chopped up, re-sorted, and spat out as yet another Hollywood style detective yarn. Only the mere fact that all the main characters were at least Native Americans saved it, though the usual all-Indians-look-alike-so-why-bother-to-get-real-Navajos aspect is so obvious as to be ludicrous.

Because I want to see better versions of Hillerman in the future, and I think Adam Beach has an appealing start toward a real Jim Chee, I rated this about four points too high at a 7 of 10. Next time I want to see real Navajos, however.

This movie gave a moving portrayal of Native Americans, between ones that wants to dismiss their past and assimilate with the outsider and their cultures, and ones that wants to hang on to their tradition. It shows how some are struggling with keeping their tradition in the modern world that is continuously moving forward, while others are torn between accepting the new and keeping with the old, or even ones who are completely disillusioned with their heritage to the point of violent counter-reactions. It all comes down to a complicated clash between various characters and how each one resolves the issue within itself.

This was a good mystery film too, revealing little by little as to the motive for the murders.

Chris Eyre did a good job in this film, having seen his other movie Smoke Signals, he gives a somber atmosphere to both of these films. Not invoking the usual depressing ambience usually portrayed on these kind of environment, but not over-glorifying any aspects either.

All in all, a worthy film to watch.

I just saw this movie, and I would like to say that this was a great mystery. The setting is in a Navajo county, Adam Beach plays a cop and a medicine man that makes sure things in town are going the way they are supposed to, and Wes Studi plays a good detective. When a murder of a medicine man takes place, Beach and Studi join together to solve the crime. The movie is great because it shows you how the Native American life is. The roles that Beach and Studi play, are roles of heros that would do anything in order to set things right. I cannot wait to see Coyote Waits. This movie was very good and I would highly recommend people that like mystery films, to see this movie.

I recently watched "Skinwalkers" again and enjoyed it more than I did the first time around. As I wrote in my Coyote Waits review, etc., I dislike that moviemakers think Native tribes are interchangeable. I am not only talking about the mispronouncing of words or the expression of cultural ideas, but something more apparent at first glance... somatotypes. Major tribes have different body types, facial structure, ways of speaking, dressing, walking, and even hair styles. They can be as different from each other as they are to non indigenous races. For example: Comanche tend to be tall, muscular and golden skinned. Navajo necks tend to look shorter with the head seemingly very close to the shoulders, in both genders. Sioux have killer cheekbones, while Apache faces are broader, and their legs are shorter; Mohawk noses tend to be "hawkish" and they "look indian" even if the person is a mixed blood with blonde hair and blue eyes! I could go on and on, but you get the point. I also find it amusing that Adam Beach's character pointed out Apache somatotypes in "Smoke Signals", so the actor cannot possibly be unaware. You will see more Navajo in Skinwalkers than I recall seeing in Coyote Waits, and I bet you will soon start recognizing who in the film is a real Navajo and who is not... giving you an appreciation of what some of us keep complaining about.

I thought Adam Beach was better in this film and I thought the plot was better. They still didn't film in the right locations as the Navajo are Mesa people, but the scenery is beautiful just the same.

Michael Greyeyes can do an insane smile better than anyone since Martin Landau. Even if you haven't seen the other films in the series, you can enjoy this film as it doesn't pull in important references from the others. It has problems, sure, but I enjoyed the ride.

I'm a fan of Hillerman's mysteries, and had high hopes for Redford's film adaptations. I came away from Skinwalkers a bit disappointed. I should preface my comments by saying that I've read about two-thirds of the Navajo mysteries, and Skinwalkers is my least favorite, so in some sense my disappointment started with the choice of book to adapt. However, my main quibbles with the movie are independent of this issue.

The foremost problem is what I see as unfaithful characterizations of Leaphorn and Chee. In the books, Leaphorn's defining attribute is his preternatural intuition, which he backs up with methodical procedure--sort of an aging Navajo Adam Dalgleish. Chee's essence is that he's a good cop who has to overcome frequent waves of self-doubt. Both are men of few words, Leaphorn because his mind is always whirring, Chee because he's moody by nature. Perhaps most distinctly, the relationship between the two is extremely unequal: Chee is in awe of Leaphorn's reputation, and as such is perpetually worried about making a wrong move within Leaphorn's view. However, what the Skinwalker movie does is take a single dimension of the characters--the fact that Chee is an active participant in Navajo spirituality and Leaphorn is not--and make that their defining contrast. This distorts Leaphorn in particular almost beyond recognition: rather than the icy logician of the books, whose attitude toward Navajo spiritual tradition is at worst pragmatic, the movie renders him as sort of a reservation Dirty Harry (with a smaller gun), informed primarily by cynicism about human motives. Given this, there's nothing for Chee to be in awe of, and their collaboration is presented as an equal division of labor, with Chee providing the "Navajo insider" angle and Leaphorn the "hardheaded cop" grounding.

Beyond this, the plot of the movie diverged considerably from that of the book, for the worse in my opinion. Disparaging a movie for not being true to a book I didn't like all that much might sound like complaining about the small portions at a lousy restaurant, but the book did have some good moments, most of which got altered or left out. In particular, the book has an especially tense episode near the end when one of the principles is in grave danger, a scene that could have been adapted to great effect. Instead, the movie's denouement feels forced, as is not that exciting.

For fans of Hillerman's books, I strongly recommend seeing the film of The Dark Wind, which I think captures the feel of the books much better than does Skinwalkers. I have a harder time recommending The Dark Wind to those unfamiliar with the books, as it has a slow pace and will probably be hard to follow. I also liked the adapatation of Coyote Waits quite a bit, less than The Dark Wind, but much more than Skinwalkers.