Smoke Signals Review

The movie began with the incident of the Thomas’ parents’ death. It was the fourth of July and his parents had a party and everyone was either drunk of asleep. Victor’s father Arnold walked around drunk with a sparkler and threw it in the kitchen. Everything quickly caught on fire and Thomas was thrown out the window where he was caught by Arnold. It quickly fast forwards to where Thomas had grown up to be a skinny, story-telling nerd and Victor a buff Indian. Constant flashbacks of Victor’s childhood are shown during the movie. Victor’s father was an angry drunk and would always beat him and his mother. One day, his mother decided to sober up for him and that was also the same time his father left. Victor then found out that his father had passed away in Phoenix, Arizona, thus began his journey with Thomas and the discovery of why his father really left. On his journey, he met a trailer mate of his dad’s named Suzy, who told him stories that his dad had told her about him. She revealed to him about the innocent mistake his father had made by killing Thomas’ parents in the fire. She also encouraged him to stop being stubborn and try to find something valuable in his father’s trailer. Throughout their journey, Thomas and Victor’s relation hadn’t improved until they got into a car accident in which the white man blames them for the incident. Victor was also charged with assault after the accident, but it was dropped because there wasn’t much of a case. In the end, he found the real reason to why his father left and is thankful for Thomas. The film portrays the legacy of white and Native American interactions as limited. Back then, I would find this portrayal as accurate, but in our modern world, I don’t believe the interaction is the same. In the film, the two Indians met a white girl named Cathy from Mississippi. She had told them she “was an alternate on the 1980 Olympics team”. They held a nice, civil conversation until Victor confronted her position on the Olympics team. In the next interaction, two white cowboys took their seats after taking a short break off the bus. Victor put on his warrior look and told them to move, but was still ignored by the white men. They navigated to the back of the bus for the next open seats. At the car accident scene, the drunk white man blamed Victor for the incident. Even though Victor ran for his life in search for help, the white man filed a charge against him. The white policeman asked Victor if he drank alcohol and when he answered no, the policeman was hesitant on believing it. But he believed Victor and the charge was dropped because the white man’s wife had commented that her husband was ‘a total a**’. This film’s portrayal of their interaction is accurate for that time period, but is not in our time period. Victor and Thomas have very different personalities. Victor displays a buff ‘jock’ Indian physique but is actually kind-hearted. The only reason for his tough guy act is because he has walls put up due to the leaving of his father. Because one person treats him wrong, he thinks everyone else is the same. Thomas on the other hand, has a skinny, nerd physique, obviously the opposite of Victor. He has a kind, determined, and spiritual personality with his story-telling. He is more open-minded than Victor. As they progress on their journey, Victor discovers himself and the real reason his father left, slowly allowing the walls he built to crumble. Thomas learns to stand up for himself and set Victor straight. He tells Victor the truth he’s already known but won’t admit. Together, their two personalities cooperates to ‘agree to disagree’. Thomas’ curious personality and Victor’s tough guy persona affects how the whites treat him. Take Cathy for example: Victor’s curious personality lead to him asking her if she was ‘a gymnast or something’. They continue to have a pleasant conversation until Victor decides to confront her. He said bluntly that she wasn’t even part of the Olympics because an athlete had to get hurt in order for her to take over. He continues to ask her if anyone was hurt, in which she replies ‘no’ and changes seat.