Dreamkeeper (2003)

Too much of everything

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

DREAMKEEPER is a beautiful and powerful film.Shane, a 17-year-old Lakota Sioux who owes money to loan sharks and has all sorts of other troubles on his mind, travels with his 87-year-old grandfather from their South Dakota reservation to an inter-tribal pow-wow in Albuquerque, NM. Along the way, Grandfather spins a number of old myths and tales from the Lakota, Cheyenne, Mohawk, Kiowa, Blackfoot, Chinook-Salish, and several other tribes that teach Shane a great deal about how to approach this life and what follows it. The myths themselves are wonderfully played-out in realistic non-animated fashion, and the 180-minute film is evenly divided between Shane & Grandpa and the stories Grandpa tells. The costume design and settings in the myth sequences are as good or better than those in even the very best western films: DREAMKEEPER truly puts you among the Indians. The cinematography and acting are also splendid throughout. Amazing special effects too.This film could have turned out really sappy, but despite the Hallmark, it's not. The realism is stunning, especially for a made-for-TV affair. Some violence and generally disturbing material, but no serious gore or sex/nudity. Grandpa's tales include everything from the ribald "What's this? My balls for your dinner?" to the transcendent "Quillwork Girl and Her Seven Star Brothers." Both of these tales, along with most of the others, are available in numerous books and websites, but I would particularly recommend American Indian MYTHS AND LEGENDS, compiled and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz and THE MYTHS of the NORTH American INDIANS, by Lewis Spence.

"This movie lasted three hours?" Hard it believe. It was riveting. Wonderful acting, writing, characterizations. If you loved "Thunderheart," you'll meet old friends in setting and writing. Moving. Sad. Glorious, makes you think. The sparks of comedy are sudden, dry and brilliant; We ere laughing all night over one line: "Go sing it, then." My dad would have loved that line.Gary Farmer as the spider spirit Iktome, with his sidekick Coyote (Warner Brothers lifting him whiolecloth from First Peoples legends) showing us all how NOT to act, are like the sacred clown schticks between the serious dancing:The native/invader images of the old Bad Indian movies are flipped. The older stories are discredited, as they should be, and the real stories come forward. Soldiers and heaps of buffalo skulls become nightmare visions. The images are piercing and clever. The Thunder God is blue as Krishna. A skull and a buffalo robe roll into a young man's protecting spirit. A squashed coyote robe blinks its eye and runs off into the grass. A rock speaks when the photo crew uses nothing but a flashlight beam.The stories are coming back, bringing back their values and lessons. The bad lies about peoples are disappearing, and the sons and daughters of the people who told them don't want them any more. They want the stories, too, because the stories heal.Dreamkeeper is a keeper.

This film is, by far, one of the most thoughtful, authentic andentertaining films related to the Native American experience andstorytelling that I have ever seen. Few people know that there areover 500 different Native tribes in North America alone. This film isa great, educational experience. It combines stories from tendifferent tribes related to love, courage and redemption. The acting is strong and the storyline works well as it driftsbetween the contemporary story of a young teen driving hisgrandfather across country to the First Nations pow wow, and thetimeless stories. Please watch this film.

I always regarded Hallmark as "the TV channel that I can skip over". That is until I saw this movie. I was lucky enough to flip past it just at the begining while I was waiting for my friend to get ready for a party we were supposed to go to. We didn't go. We watched this instead.After having seen as many movies as I (who hardly does anything else) this was a very welcome break from the monotony of the standard portrayal of the native americans. I am not a native american (or even american, I'm european) but still it was very nice to get to see "the other side of the story". Next to the story I need to applaud the many outstanding performances by the actors and actresses, of which regretably none so far is well known. Also to be noted is some exceptional cinematography combined with great special effects (for a TV movie).Great story, which has something to say. Great acting/directing. Great cinematic craftsmanship. What else could be asked from a movie?Had it been produced by a movie theater production company it would have become a huge hit, but unfortunately it will now probably be lost among the TV movie onslaught.If you have a chance to see this: take it.