Friday, December 9
Smoke Signals (map)
dir. Chris Eyre, USA 1998
88 min.

No wonder this unpretentious, funny and soulful American Indian movie, opening today, was voted the audience favorite at the Sundance Film Festival this year. It's an experience that, even through moments of tugging sadness, makes you want to cheer. Well-acted, well-written, with spare, beautiful imagery, Smoke Signals has it nailed.

Adam Beach ("Squanto'') stars as Victor Joseph, a young man who has been estranged from his father for more than a decade. He lives on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation in Idaho. Ostensibly the middle of nowhere, it's a breathtaking place touched by the lonesome shouts of amusing, striving humanity. [...]

Chris Eyre, a Cheyenne from Klamath Falls, Ore., directed the film with heartening sensitivity toward the plainspoken lyricism of the characters. Beautiful in both its brevity and its vision of contemporary Indian culture, the film abounds in easygoing humor. Smoke Signals is, at heart, about the meaning of family and connections[...]. - Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle