Week 13 Essay 3 Workshop

What role does forgiveness play in smoke signals?

I wanted to start this essay with the part where Victor, a young Native American boy, is asked by his parents who his favorite Indian is and he replies “nobody”…of course they didn’t believe that answer nor settle for it. They asked him several more times and he kept saying, “nobody”, until he replied for the last time with a yell “Nobody!” He grew up not trusting people; he carries a lot of bitterness and hopelessness. This leads me into why I chose how forgiveness plays a role in this particular film.

Forgiveness is strongly portrayed in the part where Victor throws his father’s ashes off the bridge into the river and lets out his primal scream, but what I noticed that is also conveyed in this part is Victor is also able to let go of the bitterness and hopelessness he has carried with him his whole life since childhood. What ties forgiveness all together in this film is the last line of the movie showing Thomas asking “if we forgive our fathers, what is left?” This line is an adaption of the film, which makes me wonder why it is so hard forgiving those that are closest to us and usually it isn’t until they are no longer living and then we realize how much it helps, just as Victor experienced and revealed through this film. I believe that forgiveness gives us freedom and love possibly without the stigma of “daddy” that weighs us down. The last line in the film portraying forgiveness is taken from the poem written by Dick Lourie, called “forgiving our Fathers”. Lourie, is a self-described beatnik poet that brought a beauty to the motional climax of this film through his poem.
(Referenced website:http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080627084016AAbcdTe)


I must say the film also coaxed my response out, of emotional abandonment I have with my father, so as I sat watching, crying out as if a blubbering-fest was taken place, I found that I had something in common with Victor self-reconciliation. I truly felt the movie tenderly moved through love, pain and hopelessness through twisted past and present scenes so well, you can see in these scenes how the emotions were faced and felt by Victor and Thomas, I too sat there watching and experiencing them within myself.
Watching this film I could see the alienation and reconciliation displayed through the Native American eyes of Victor and Thomas as they begin the film toward understanding of two opposites shared on common culture land.

Victor had to forgive the years of abuse and alcoholism that destroyed his family as it raged through his life from his father, until he separated from his mother and eventually his father died in a fire. This is also depicted in the beginning of the film narrated by Thomas of children who are born of fire and ash. Then the film opens up displaying the struggle Victor undergoes facing his past and recovering his lost identity from the personal effects of his father in a warrior role he takes on a journey with his friend Thomas in a sensitive manner.

This film is a depiction of contemporary Native American culture through a journey of Thomas and Victor Joseph’s lives woven together that leads us through the film with keen understanding of a sensitivity of universal human emotion and social commentary with love, regret, pain and forgiveness which can be related to and not just that but that these characters show moments of humor, sadness through the past and present that we understand. Both of these boys learn acceptance, human compassion, perseverance understanding and forgiveness in which is sad and comforting in this film and also opened me up to care about them. I too compared my life experiences of learning to accept and forgive my father with compassion and understanding to let go and go on with my life.

The forgiveness shown in this film certainly made me think, I wondered if Victor needed to find forgiveness for his father because his father could not forgive himself for the life he gave his family, which certainly gave me heavy thoughts into my own life of suffering of this. I also believe that by Victor forgiving his father he will then be able to move on with his own life as I have mine and possibly make his life for his children different then his own. I also thought that possibly it is us that needs to ask for forgiveness and that we are here to teach our fathers and not the other way around and we may need to find forgiveness for our fathers in our age and not in theirs or at their deaths. Forgiveness is the central theme of this movie and is important to viewers everywhere, it is about letting go and what holding on does to us and even learning to forgive the unforgivable. This film is about what has happened in our past and our present and what we become because of things our fathers did when we were young and how find forgiveness from the rage. This film has such a strong plot that triggers lost feelings of not ever understanding our fathers or ourselves because things were never expressed the way they were meant to be or things were done that couldn’t be forgiven.

This film does not receive the recognition it deserves and it seems to be largely misunderstood as it shows the quality of a very sad life on a Native American Indian reservation. I think that this movie talks to everyone about forgiveness no matter what ethnic background they may be and I think if it hadn’t been for my English teacher I may have missed watching this amazing film myself. Thank you!!

References:
1. Alexie, S. (1998). Forgiveness on movie Smoke Signals . In Smoke Signals (p.
196). English : Hyperion; 1st edition (July 1, 1998). (Reprinted from
Smoke Signals , 2008, November 21, Movie , pp. ISBN-13: 978-0786883929)