Powwow Highway

Lovely movie. Pow Wow Highway is the story of A Montana Cheyenne who takes off in a 1964 Buick to find enlightenment. Joining him is the reservation's political activist, who sets out to rescue his sister from an unjust imprisonment.

Pow Wow Highway is the story of their journey, and in one sense it's a road movie and a buddy movie, but in another sense it's a meditation on the way we understand the world we live in. Philbert Bono doesn't think of a trip to Santa Fe in terms of hours or miles, but in terms of the places he must visit between here and there to make it into a journey of discovery -- to gather Medicine or Spirit Power.

Each character, in the film, looks at life from a different perspective. To Philbert the trip to Santa Fe is his Vision Quest, his coming of age as a man and a Cheyenne Warrior. His vision is clear and uncontaminated by the world, consequently, he is able to achieve communion with the Great Spirit and be transformed into Whirlwind Dreamer, mighty Cheyenne warrior. He does this by being open, honest, and sincere, thereby tapping the potential that always existed within him.

Remarkable movie, and a must see. Gary Farmer is terrific.

Winner of the Filmmaker's Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival.

This is an amazing movie. Gary Farmer was given a a role that allowed him to frame the entire film via his performance, and he pulls off a masterpiece. DeNiro very rarely has such luck. While it is incredibly well cast from top to bottom (A Martinez, a charmingly brazen Amanda Wyss, cameos by then-unknowns Wes Studi and the always underutilized Graham Greene, even the seedy car/stereo salesman done dually by Patrick Randal) and each performer knocks on perfection, Farmer takes this to an entirely different plateau.

Roger Ebert favorably critiqued the film by announcing Farmer's performance was "one of the most wholly convincing I've seen", which seems a subtle understatement.

You will not understand this film if you don't get Philbert, the perpetual protagonist Farmer portrays. It's too easy to identify with A Martinez' character, Buddy Red Bow, a hip-shooting realist bent on vengeance. I've been watching Martinez since The Cowboys in 72, and this performance should have given the notice A Level actors deserve.

Unfortunately, the same magic that made the film possible was it's very undoing.

Handmade Films, a pet project by Beatle George Harrison, brought this novel to film. Despite several successful titles (including Monty Python and offshoot ventures), Handmade was spiraling towards bankruptcy, and Powwow didn't perform at the box office because there was no money to push it.

Great art is most often lost.

Don't let your pony throw you. Watch Powwow Highway. Now.

One of the great disappointments about most of the films that predate this one and revolve around anything purporting to be about "Native Americans" or "Indians," is the stereotypical nature of the characters (mostly, "noble" and "stoic"). This was one of the first and still is one of the best films that captures the humor that is intrinsic to the culture(s) of most of the Native Americans that I've ever been around. Without this film, "Smoke Signals" might never have been possible, since it broke some much needed ground, helping to end the still prevalent practice of using non-Indians to play Indians.

The great thing about this film is that, like Smoke Signals, it has themes that transcend the merely cultural. Most of the elders I know teach with humor, and this movie captures that beautifully.

It's a movie not to be missed!

Depicts the struggles of reservation-dwelling Native Americans in the North Central United States. The main character is an introspective and lovable person in a process of seeking pride and identity through traditional and mystical means of gathering power. His high school friend, who is a Vietnam War Veteran, is exerting power as a highly principled social activist, using a modern rational materialist adversarial model of progress.

There really are not that many movies out there about reservation life, at least very few that come to mind. This one is excellent, however. Not just because it is a really good movie (which it is), but because of the way it portrays the characters.

It would be much too easy to paint the Cheyenne as the good guys and the "white man" as the bad guy. This is not the case. Certainly, we feel bad for the way big business wants to strip the natives of resources... but the natives are shown as less than perfect, too. Is getting ripped off bad? Of course. But does that make it acceptable to smash a store and beat a store owner? No.

I can't say enough about the sheer quality of this little film, so I won't even try. What I will say is that Gary Farmer's portrayal of Philbert was one of the sweetest characterizations I have ever seen, and he's emblazoned forever on my heart. Also outstanding was Graham Greene in a small role as a Vietnam vet suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. A Martinez, who's something of a one-trick pony, was very well suited to his role.