A Real Raw Deal

"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a made for HBO original film that tells the sorrowful tale of what happened to the Native American Indians after the battle at Little Big Horn (aka Custer's Last Stand.)  The subject matter of this film is one of the few dark periods of American history that are actually taught in schools.  To my relief, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee does not come off as a film that would only be shown in classrooms.

Ohiyesa "Charles" Eastman (Adam Beach,) Sitting Bull (August Schellenberg,) and Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn) are the three central characters of the picture.  Each of them wants something.  A new dawn is rising on the relationship the United States government has with the Native Americans.  Senator Dawes appears to have good intentions for the natives.  He draws up a plan that he believes is a fair deal in ensuring the survival of the Native American people, their wildlife and crops, and most importantly their land which they seem to hold so dear.  The deal also reserves big chunks of land for the Indians to live on as well as sets aside other portions of land that they can then be sold to the white man.  It's a win win for both sides right?  Right?  Sitting Bull and Eastman are no dummies to what is actually happening to their people in this new age of acquisition and ownership.

Even if you're unfamiliar with this period of American history the film makes it very clear that the Native Americans got a really raw deal from government.  I hate to break it to you folks but the United States did a lot of despicable deeds to get to where it is now as a country.  It's not even that the film paints the United States in a poor light.  This is straight up fact.  There's no way around it, sorry.  The villain of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is the United States government.  

I think this film is important in that it deals with an ugly era that happened right here on the home front.  This isn't about something that happened in another country like the Holocaust.  There have been plenty of films on that subject matter.  Don't get me wrong I am not trying to down play the importance and tragedy of the Holocaust.  All I am saying is that there have been other vile matters that should be brought to light through the means of cinema.  Hotel Rwanda and The Last King of Scotland which both deal with the genocide that occurred over in Africa were important stories that needed to be told.

“What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money?  Yet they say that I am the thief.”  “If we must die, we die defending our rights.”  These are two quotes from real Sitting Bull that accurately represent the thematic nature of this film.  Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a beautifully photographed, powerfully acted, brutally honest portrayal of the assimilation and extermination of the Native American people.  The film touches on the broader scope of the situation but gives us more of an intimate portrait of how our government's actions affected two particular individuals.  You don’t have to be a history buff to understand the gravity of just how important the subject matter of this film is.  Director Yves Simoneau has put to together an absolutely meaningful and substantial piece of work without ever coming across as preachy or full of itself.