Powwow Highway

Jonathan Wacks's 1989 film follows two men setting out from the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana. Buddy is a politically angry veteran; Philbert is pursuing his own spiritual search and treats an old car as a horse. They travel to Santa Fe to get Buddy's sister out of jail. The film fills the road-movie template with Indigenous experience. Reservation politics, pressure from mining companies and how federal agencies operate are not background but the plot itself. That was rare in American cinema at the end of the eighties. The difference between the two characters is the engine: Buddy has left tradition behind and Philbert is returning to it, and the film does not try to vindicate either. Gary Farmer's Philbert stands entirely outside the genre's templates for Indigenous characters. Who it's for: those who like American independent cinema and Indigenous narratives. Who it's not for: viewers expecting high production value; the film was made on a low budget and it shows.