[pic: farmer as philbert bono, powwow highway, 1988]

If you like the series Reservation Dogs, you ought to like Powwow Highway. To my mind (white, male, aged) these comic works get closer to capturing the Native American experience than do more earnest movies like Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1994) and Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese, 2023), which rely too heavily on the white man’s point of view. As the title suggests, it’s a road movie, and as with any good road movie, the travelers are an odd couple. Buddy Red Bow (A Martinez) is a hot-tempered activist, trying to stymie the latest corporate takeover of land on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. Philbert Bono (Gary Farmer) is a corpulent, easy-going eccentric, enthralled by Native American myths and legends. When Buddy’s sister is arrested on trumped-up charges in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he persuades Philbert to drive him there to get her released. Philbert has recently acquired (via a trade for some marijuana) an ancient wreck of a car that he refers to as his “pony” and calls Protector. Despite Buddy’s insistence on going straight to Santa Fe, he can’t keep Philbert from getting sidetracked onto locations associated with Native American history. The result is an engaging blend of farce and travelogue, with a provocative, sometimes bittersweet point of view. Farmer’s creation of the endearing Philbert, a fine blend of sweet and stubborn, of naive and canny, is a remarkable performance. Martinez has just the right hair-trigger quality as Buddy, and the supporting cast, which includes bit parts for the then-unknown Wes Studi and Graham Greene (particularly good as an aphasic Vietnam veteran), is wonderful. The “happy ending” is by-the-book, but well-deserved nevertheless. 

Jim Jarmusch - Dead Man (1995)

Jim Jarmusch - Dead Man (1995)

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First Cow dir. Kelly Reichardt (2019)