My new friend Chip (see reservation art down below) turned me on to this Academy Award winning movie. It’s frankly incredible that I hadn’t known about it before. The movie is about the recent history of the Navajo and Hopi tribes and their tangling with the US Government and Peabody Coal. Relocation, environmental hazards, genocide, mistreatment, corporate and government power, coal and uranium strip mining, water rights, native american traditions, prophesy…this has been going on for over 100 years. This film has friends of the family in it, locales that are within miles from my childhood home. I shared the bus with these indians, some of my best friends in the day were from this area..my brothers wife is from this area, they were married in the traditional way….it’s all processing with me right now. I’m not sure there is any area in the United States right now that is as wrought with issues as this area. All under my nose.
The movie, while interesting and revealing, should certainly be taken with a grain of salt..and a big scoop of blind eye for the horrible sound track and low production values. It looks like its from the 1970′s but it’s not. Good on em for trying to get the word out though.
BTW…seriously…the movie Avatar..you can NOT tell me isn’t inspired in some way by this story. Effort to move the natives off their sacred land so “unoptanium” (uranium) could be mined, kill the tree of life, natives understood balance of mother earth and sanctity of life…Na’vi (Navajo)…come on. Unfortunately…nothing is simple or easy. Nuclear power is a pretty great power source..does it all have to be handled so crookedly though?
so, check it. “broken rainbow” won an academy award in 1985 for best documentary. true, the production values are dated; however, given the film’s budget, it still delivers a poignant message of resistance against the u.s. government and devotion to homeland. the film is narrated by martin sheen with a soundtrack by buffy saint-marie and laura nyro.
i think one of the more insightful things about the film is the discussion of the 5 natural resources found on the rez (including natural gas, coal, uranium, timber and aquifers – i think those are the 5 mentioned), and how the navajo people should be the richest group of people living in the u.s. but because of the rubber stamping of laws by tribal governments created for this purpose, the dine’ are amongst the poorest people in the u.s. it’s like a colony right here in the u.s. and sadly, an example of how domestic policy mimics foreign policy.
but hey – that’s just my take on it all. regardless, thanks for passing the word.