The real stories of Indigenous people who suffered wounds of all different kinds from residential schools can't always be captured well on film. Some stories have triumph within tragedy. Some stories are mostly tragedy.
Indian Horse falls in the latter category. You sense within minutes of this film that a lot of heartache is coming.
Saul lives deep in the wild with his parents and grandmother. His older brother takes ill at a residential school and later dies. His parents, who converted to Christianity, focus on their dead son and leave Saul behind with his grandmother.
After his grandmother dies, Saul is caught by the authorities and sent to a residential school.
The only saving grace for Saul is that he is really good at hockey. The team doesn't want him at first because Saul is Indigenous. Eventually, his talent takes over.
Saul finds some solace when he sent to play with a team comprised on Indigenous players in a small mining town.
Saul has good teammate support with his fellow Indigenous players. He gets to the Toronto Monarchs and his teammates don't really talk to him.
The story is about Saul's inner struggle with adaptation in his various worlds. There is a sad sense but we learn very little about what Saul is thinking.
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The film is a bunch of chapters loosely bound together. A bunch of horrible things happen without much warmth or anything reasonably pleasant.
You get the desolate circumstances for Saul and other Indigenous children over multiple generations. If you know absolutely nothing on this topic, you will get a good sense of what really happened. Indian Horse is a pretty good film, just really difficult to watch. Some of that unpleasantness is the story and also how the story is told.
The film is an adaptation of Ojibwe author Richard Wagamese's 2012 novel of the same name. You might learn more about Saul in the book as opposed to the film.
Sladen Peltier, as the 6-year-old version of Saul, got a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Vance Banzo, a member of Tallboyz, does a good job as one of Saul's Indigenous teammates.
The film was released theatrically, playing at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Yet the film was originally supposed to be a TV movie for Super Channel. The film does have a feel like a TV movie.
Indian Horse was actually the highest-grossing English Canadian film of 2018. So others clearly disagree with this review.
Indian Horse is available on Netflix.
video credit: YouTube/YouTube Movies
photo credit: Indian Horse film
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