1/27/2024 0 Comments Who plays grandma in broken roads![]() The return to the river is metaphorical, but it also signifies a return to life, following a narrative of environmental adaptation that facilitates transforming a lifeless environment into a home. The hopeless drugged state of the reservation is critiqued here, but in the context both of one solution-getting rid of the alcohol-and a more natural alternative-a return to the life-filled river. Victor is throwing beer bottles at Arnold’s truck, breaking them one by one. He runs from the room, and we hear banging noises. The party is over now in the dream, and Victor sees his parents passed out fully clothed on their bed. The Spokane River is clear and running wildly with fish in this story, but Victor exclaims, “There ain’t any salmon in that river no more!” before flashing back to his own dream. Sometimes it’s a good day to eat breakfast.” Arnold sees him and invites him to breakfast at Denny’s. In this story, Thomas sits on a bridge in Spokane watching salmon run. Before the story ends, Thomas tells Victor another story about his father that reveals a more hopeful take both on Arnold and his environment. Arnold and Arlene, now both drunk, ask young Victor (Cody Lightning) about his favorite Indian, and he yells “nobody” repeatedly and runs away. Victor’s story centers on another houseparty, this time before the celebrants have passed out for the night. Victor’s flashback seems like a dream that is broken by Thomas’ story. These stories demonstrate that Victor and Thomas and their environment are moving from a lifeless and hopeless state toward the hope of life. The beginning of the bus trip prompts two more stories about Victor’s father, one in flashback from Victor’s perspective, the other directly from Thomas. Lucy and Velma tell them they are going “to a whole ‘nother country,” since to the young women the United States is “as foreign as it gets.” Dramatic changes in the film’s ecology reinforce these words, as the bus carries the Victor and Thomas across flat brown steppe-like landscapes to the red rock of the Southwest. ![]() The young men’s journey off the reservation begins when Victor and Thomas enter a bus, a modern stagecoach going east to Arizona instead of west. The story also provides a comic turn in the film, especially when Velma laughs, “I think it’s a fine example of the oral tradition.” ![]() Then they plea-bargained that down to being an Indian in the twentieth century. Then they plea-bargained that down to assault with a deadly weapon. ![]() Instead of driving off a cliff, the two young women flirt with Thomas and Victor, giving them a ride only after Thomas tells them a story that reveals something about Arnold and his work for the American Indian Movement (AIM): “sense of time in the movie, when the past, present, and future are all the same, that circular sense of time which plays itself out in the seamless transitions from past to present.”įor Alexie this is a visual metaphor for the adage: “Sometimes to go forward you have to drive in reverse.” The Velma and Lucy storyline pays homage to Thelma and Louise but without the hopeless suicide pact that ends the white women’s filmic lives. According to the Cineaste interview with Alexie, the two women and their car provide a John) and Lucy (Elaine Miles) driving in reverse because their car’s transmission is broken. As if responding to this communal vision, Victor goes to Thomas’s house to invite him on his journey, and the setting and tone begin to change.įor example, when Victor and Thomas walk toward the bus that will take them from Spokane to Phoenix, Arizona, a comic tone overcomes the isolation in act one. “I got the recipe from my grandmother and she got it from her grandmother, and I listened to people,” she says, showing him how building a new and better life-or fry bread-requires a collective process. Arlene’s story about fry bread helps Victor make his decision about taking Thomas: “I don’t make it by myself,” Arlene tells him. Victor associates fry bread with relationship building when he hugs his mom and compliments her on her bread, the best on the reservation. The scene also illustrates the communal strength on which environmental adaptation can be built. Although Victor bears his pain in isolation, Thomas helps his grandmother make fry bread, gaining confidence that Victor will agree to travel with him to Arizona. The opening act closes when Victor and Thomas consult with their mother figures and move closer to their journey. Victor's father making home constantly difficult. Impoverished reservation homes on displayġ976 traffic report reveals the reservation’s isolation Views of the run-down reservation in 1976 Victor and Thomas hitch a ride for a story
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