'BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE' REVIEW: Appropriate, Responsible Info... tainment? [3.5/5]
Director Yves Simoneau Shows His Work
[Rating 3.5/5] - dir. Yves Simoneau - 2007 - United States - 14A - 2h 13m - Historical Drama
There is this quality that plagues many of the would-be great, appropriate historical dramas — they become infodramas. They hit an unsatisfying equilibrium, unable to properly, in favour of active viewing/listening, balance information and fiction, and education and filmmaking.
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee disarms this by being forthright about what it is, and the styles it wants to employ. Ken Burns moving pictures? Greyscaled? Throw ‘em in. We’re one spin away from a dizzying newspaper headline. Well-written dramatic arcs? Yes please. Time lapses straight from an 80s educational video? But of course.
Instead of trying and failing to hide this discomfiting tapestry of materials, director Yves Simoneau comes right out with it. If you, the viewr, make peace with this, you will get what you want out of coming to Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.
But what do you want, coming to this film? Can you ever really wrap your arms, in conventional movie runtime, around such a subject?
Do you want a faithful adaptation of the transformative mid-century novel? Some version of the turn of the century poem from which the novel takes its name? A guns blazing western? Goodies versus baddies? Do you wonder, like I did, if 2007 cinema and culture as a whole was really there yet enough to handle this divisive, brutal portion of North American history?
I can’t quite square any of it with myself.
I think it feeds into the equilibrium issue.
The reason this common equilibrium is unsatisfying (but common) is because it can’t yet be satisfying, let alone “entertainment” — certainly not for the majority of the countries watching it, especially not when it’s clear the government(s) haven’t done enough for reconciliation.
And so Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee and films like it, in a well-meaning but too often textbook-come-to-life way, must also be educational.
I want more. Only way forward is with more.
…?
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P.S. Anna Paquin’s always game for a period piece isn’t she? Almost like an American Keira Knightley. Adam Beach deserves more work.
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‘Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee’ is streaming now.
Selected Movie Quote: “Have you chosen a Christian name?” “No, ma’am.” “Should I choose it for you?”
[Rating 3.5/5] - dir. Yves Simoneau - 2007 - United States - 14A - 2h 13m - Historical Drama