Smoke Signals ~ A Message of Forgiveness

The movie, "Smoke Signals" deals with many themes including, American History from the prospective of Native Americans, popular American stereotypes, Native American cultural traditions and the connection between fathers and sons. All these themes are certainly interesting to explore but nothing is as powerful or universal as the connection between a father and a son. A father's role is protector, provider and leader within a modern society. No matter what nationality one belongs to the father is expected to be emotionally stable in order to function well at his role. Then sometimes our fathers have pain from emotional scars that have not healed. How do we rise above the pain our fathers pass on to us from their past?  "Smoke Signals" sends a message that forgiveness for our father's actions is how we can rise above the adversities of a terrible past and make peace with it.

Idaho Native American Lands - Coeur d' Alene

The film, "Smoke Signals" produced by Chris Eyre with screenplay by Sherman Alexie, is a wonderful example of the father and son connection and how a person can heal from a painful event in the past. The film is set on the Indian Reservation of Coeur d' Alene in Idaho with an all Native American cast and characters. In the film, the father Arnold Victor gets drunk after an Independence Day BBQ then sets a home on fire. That fire kills the parents of Thomas, who later grows up with Arnold Victor's son Victor. That accidental fire becomes a guilt to the father that destroys him. Victor carries his father's shame with feelings of abandonment resulting in verbal and physical violence towards Thomas. In the end, Suzy Song tells Victor his father accidentally set the fire that killed Thomas's parents and that he never got over his guilt years later. Victor realizes he must face the truth about his father and forgive himself for the guilt he is carrying from his father abandoning him.

There is such a strange second-sight one has watching a film like "Smoke Signals," about young men in the Native American  Coeur d' Alene tribe and being a descendant of another tribe. Perhaps some of the more subtle nuances of the Indian culture were lost on American audiences except for the father and son theme. The film's opening is classic Indian folklore, as it starts with Thomas's story of how he was born, flying out of a window in a fire being caught by Arnold Victor. Thomas says, "We are children of the fire." Listening to the opening story of the movie reminded me of own father's stories of how family members were born. I was told the event surrounding one's birth is significant of their future life on earth and if that event is negative, they must fight to over come that throughout life like an ongoing trial. Like my father always tells the story of my birth he said, "When I was born I was the loudest, fussiest baby in the whole hospital nursery--- we knew you weren't never going to be quiet at that moment." Such creation stories are critical to one's birth and later personality.
  

1910 Advertisement of Indian Land for Sale

In the film it is important to understand the significance of the opening "creation" story surrounding Thomas and Victor's early life. These creation stories of Native Indians set the tone for the story. The importance of the dark silhouette of Arnold Victor handing Thomas to his grandmother reveals the darkness of that moment. The grandmother twice asked Arnold Victor, "What happened?" Arnold Victor never answered but handed her baby Thomas. It was in that moment that Arnold Victor could have redeemed his guilt. If he had admitted to setting the fire he would have been guilt free but instead he said nothing and ultimately ran from the truth. From this setting it was clear that Victor caused the fire due to the explicit setting used to frame the scene like an elderly storyteller. Indians often use setting to explain a story like saying, it was dark and only the fire was glowing when the man handed a baby to an old, small, crying woman.

In Indian culture, stories are sacred to understanding why everything happens and I have found it to be quite accurate. One should never ask if the story is true because the storyteller never says yes or no. It is for you the listener to think and decide its worth in truthfulness. Indian stories have hidden or double meaning in everything said. The film "Smoke Signals" is completed in this same riddled tradition I was born into, where nothing means one thing and it all connects in a greater universal way. Elders do this to make sure the person hearing the story remembers and thinks of its meaning for years to come and it is passed down through the ages. Just as a smoke signal is carried in the wind high into the clouds for everyone to see and interpret for miles around.

Even though I am not from the same Coeur d' Alene tribe, my father to this day still tells me riddles. Watching the film I reminisced about our family. One day my father's great-great uncle, King David (yes his real name) said this proverb about family, "The sins of the father pass to the son through the ages until someone in the generation releases the past." What uncle King David means is that people have to accept their past in order to release the pain of the past. The poem at the film's end "Forgiving our Fathers" by Dick Lourie confirms the film's true message to fathers and sons and the significance of forgiving the father's past in order to move forward.

My grand mother used to say, "You don't forgive people for them-- you forgive them for you." What grandma means is to move past pain and guilt you have to learn to forgive yourself and others. This describes Victor's guilt before he forgives his father after talking to Suzy Song. When Victor cuts his hair in the trailer where his father dies is a sign of his mourning but not about true forgiveness. Victor does not forgive his father until he is running for help after the car crash. Running for help, Victor realizes the guilt his father must have felt for causing the fire and not getting Thomas's parents out. That moment running to get help Victor finally forgave his father.

When Suzy Song wakes the next morning and burns the Arnold Victor's trailer down it was done after Victor had forgiven his father. Once Victor had forgiven his father his guilt could be released. In our culture, the sage plant like Suzy Song used to burn down the Arnold's trailer is used to cleanse a space of negativity and fire is used to release the energy (or soul) to prevent it from being trapped in the living world over guilt. Fire is one of those double meanings whereas it consumes and frees all at once. Thomas and Victor being born of fire and the fire Suzy Song set to Arnold's trailer shows fire's double meaning.

"Smoke Signals" is a powerful example of redemption and overcoming the past through forgiveness between a father and his son. This universal theme follows a pattern for all people whether they are Indians, African Americans, Italians, British etc. Just as the title of the film "Smoke Signals" is universal as an age old method of sending a message, this film sends the message that we must accept our past and forgive our father's mistakes to move forward with peace in our lives.

Russell Means: Welcome to the Reservation

Lecture on America