Aboriginal Santuary

THE BUSINESS OF FANCYDANCING (2002)

ABORIGINAL SANCTUARY

Northwest author, director, poet, producer, activist, and humorist Sherman Alexie gathered a group of his friends together and they “made a movie” or they almost did. Falling a little short of the mark of a polished and finished film, nevertheless this movie gives us a series of tableaus that are both striking and emotionally charged, challenging us to “understand” our Indian brothers. This lovely and sad picture tackles many of Alexie’s favorite themes, like life on the Rez, substance abuse, racism, native heritage and coveting of the “old ways”, a child’s eye view of parental alcoholism, struggle for meaning in an ignorant and non-caring world, and the driving need some Indians have to return to the Rez, to “make a difference”, juxtaposed to the pulsating need others have to stay away, to build new lives amongst the white eyes; and something new –sexuality.

Evan Adams, long identified as Thomas Builds-the-Fire from that excellent Alexie adaptation, SMOKE SIGNALS (1998), stretched his creative impulses to portray Seymour Polatkin –who was a very successful gay poet, and who happened to live with a paleface “life partner”. “In the before time,” Seymour tells his book store audience, “Homosexuals were completely accepted by other Indians, treated as special, like the crazy ones, or the disabled; cherished and protected. Homophobia was something Indians had to learn from the white men.” That, I suppose, and firewater. Evans, as an actor, is right up front about his own homosexuality, so the character of Seymour is an interesting mix if Alexie and himself; heartfelt and accurate, like a sound thump between the eyes. Some interesting trivia was revealed in the DVD director comments –Evan had to be shown how to unhook Michelle’s bra since that skill eluded him, and during the shawl dance shown in the opening credits, Evan is doing a “girl’s” shawl dance. Then laced throughout the film we see Seymour in full Fancydance regalia moving expertly though a dance, until the end where he rejected all of it, and stripped the costume off, and sat nearly naked.

Alexie has been criticized for “revealing” too much angst, pain, and sorrow relative to his kin’s alcoholism, and his own –illuminating the substance abuse that runs rabid and rampant through all of the Indian nations. His character in FANCYDANCING, Mouse, dies of an overdose. He contends that he is simply writing from his actual experience, from his life –that he “speaks the whole truth” regardless of the literary and symbolic consequences. I support and would defend his artistic license for introspection. Reading his poetry, novels, essays, and narratives is like taking a crash course in “Indianism”—and that is spoken like a honest-to-God Indian Wannabe, I remind myself painfully.

We come away from this film with another miniscule peek into what it must “mean” to be a 21st Century aboriginal Native American Indian. In it Alexie introduces us to all kinds of Indians, most of them “breeds”, blond ones, Jewish ones, Asian ones, pass-for-White ones; all of them true Skins, with Indian hearts, Indian eyes, and definite Indian perceptions about this White World that they are immersed in; a swirling miasma of culture shocks that they are set adrift in.

It is more a film of vignettes, of colorful episodes (one that sticks in my mind is several children waiting for hours in a car as their parents close down a tavern), tied loosely together with Polatkin being an almost-protagonist, an anti-hero, an arrogant and selfish artist who had rejected his heritage, even though his poetry was only about his youth, and his friends and relations on the reservation, several separate stories strung to the others because of a funeral, a brother, a friend, a cousin –one of many; too many. When asked how many funerals he had attended in the last two years since he left the reservation, Seymour answered, “40” –and the specter of Aids flashed in front of our white eyes.

Cinematographer Holly Taylor, who helped a first-time director put the script onto film, and then assisted him in editing it, where the actual movie emerges – drenched the screen with the primitive primary colors of the tribe, Indian blankets, jewelry, and costumes that dazzled us with their brilliance, and exquisite beauty, sunsets and rises, lakes and loons, eastern and western Washington, many scenes shot in the “golden hour”. It was shot mostly on the western Washington side, in Seattle and on Vashon Island . Vashon, oddly was supposed to be on the Spokane reservation. There were some stock shots he used that were shot on his old haunts on the Rez to set the mood.

Dennis Harvey of VARIETY wrote, “Lensing by Holly Taylor is uncommonly rich with painterly hyperrealist effects, such as a ravishing long shot in which Mouse is seen strolling on a path in a verdant Northwest forest, playing his fiddle like a medieval minstrel, and the sound elements were likewise imaginative –untethered to linear form.”
There is a lot of authentic and interesting music in the film composed by Brent Michael Davids, with songs written and performed by Michelle St. John and Alexie. The film soundtrack CD is certainly a keeper and worth a listen.

In some ways the critics were kind and accurate, and in other ways they did not warm to the film, treating it more like a graduated directed study, an anomaly rather than a movie by an earnest first time director. Dennis Harvey in VARIETY wrote, “Arthouse hit, individual set pieces are particularly striking. However stalled character development in the second half of the pic reduces the impact of the whole. After touring Fest circuit, best prospects will lie in specialized broadcast sales; theatrical viability is iffy.”

The film did fairly well at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2002. Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote, “This film is more than the sum of its sometimes awkward parts. The anger and betrayal hanging in the wake of shattered relationships and conflicted identities leave an admirable untidiness while most other films would have forced some form of resolution. There are no answers here, and it is not for lack of questions.”

Evan Adams is extremely effective as Polatkin the conflicted gay poet, the butt warrior estranged from the Spokane Rez, who is pulled back for his cousin’s funeral. Alexie enjoyed himself with the casting, spraying the mix with diverse ethnicity. Adams, who is a full-blooded Indian, looks very Asian in the role. Michelle St. John, wonderful as Agnes, the school teacher who returned to the reservation is half Jewish. Gene Tagaban, playing the volatile Aristotle Joseph, looked every inch the stoic archetypical Indian, great sweeping long black locks, fairly tall, muscular, looked great in buckskin, with that great Injun “profile”, actually is half Pilipino. Swil Kanim, who played the fiddler Mouse, looked more Cajun than Spokane , and grew facial hair like an Arab. Cynthia Geary played Teresa, the white woman who came to the reservation and fell in love with several of the Indians, and stayed on, was a marvelous contrast in her scenes, this beautiful blonde amidst a sea of redskin. Her part was severely edited down, and it suffered with some non-continuity. Kevin Philip was Seymour ’s white roommate, and their interracial bedtime scenes were interesting colors added to the fiber of the film. Philip is a “straight” actor who did a bang-up job playing a gay man.
For some odd reason this interesting Independent film after it worked the Festival Circuit, winning a few awards, just dropped out of sight and was never widely distributed. I have a friend who was in it, and he brought it to my attention. Thank God there is a DVD of it. For Sherman Alexie fans, it is a must see, and for the rest of folks –give yourselves a tasty treat and sit down for this 103 minutes of film; it will “move” you.

Glenn Buttkus 2007