Winter in the Blood Directed by Alex and Andrew Smith (review)

Andrew and Alex Smith's film adaptation of James Welch's Winter in the Blood chronicles the misadventures and misfortunes of Virgil First Raise (Chaske Spence, Lakota-Sioux), a “mixed-blood” man who exists in a state of arrested development. Stuck in an “in-between space,” Virgil's days begin in a bleary-eyed haze, and his nights often end in the bed of a stranger due to his “terrible thirst” for drink, for women, for adventure, for any means of escaping the specters of his past, specifically, his guilt over the death of his brother Mose. Compounding the trauma of his brother's death, Virgil's father freezes to death clutching a bottle of cheap wine, a memory that haunts Virgil like an inherited inevitability. He becomes mired in the “shadow world of white people” by the “Airplane Man” (David Morse), a character reminiscent of the white explorers from the novels Virgil reads to his grandmother. This parallel, paired with the surreal nature of their encounters, seems to indicate that the “Airplane Man” could be a figment of Virgil's drunken imagination, promising him adventure while pulling him closer to destruction. However, Virgil also begins revisiting Yellow Calf, an enigmatic elderly Black-feet man (Saginaw Grant, Sac and Fox, Iowa and Otoe-Missouria) Virgil remembers from his youth. Yellow Calf lives in isolation, adhering to a more traditional manner of living, and though he is blind, he recognizes Virgil and helps him come to terms with his painful past by discovering who he is and, more important, who he could become.

Welch's Winter in the Blood was published in 1974, at the height of the Native American Renaissance, and established his reputation as a great twentieth-century author. Filmmakers Alex and Andrew Smith, who grew up in Montana and for whom James Welch was a family friend, explained on the website for their film (winterintheblood.com) that above all they endeavored to make a film that felt “true to home,” capturing Welch's prose and the spirit of the setting. Thus, the film deftly navigates Welch's iconic text, capturing his detailed descriptions of the “Hi-Line” of Montana and tackling the original text's gritty treatment of addiction, isolation, and racism with care and purpose. In fact, at a screening of Winter in the Blood at the Native Crossroads Film Festival, Alex Smith conveyed the sense of “responsibility” he and his fellow director and producers felt in their approach to the film, which included unflinching portrayals of contemporary issues in Indian Country, including domestic violence. In a disturbing scene from the novel, Virgil physically assaults a woman named Marlene (portrayed by Lily Gladstone in the movie); in the film, this scene captures the abrupt and brutal nature of the attack and avoids either sensationalizing or downplaying the violence Virgil commits. In another scene, one that is a departure from the novel, Virgil nearly commits suicide in a moment of desperation. At the film's screening, director Alex Smith explained that this addition was a purposeful one, created to highlight the epidemic of suicide among Native youth. In refusing to shy away from complicated moments in the text and the painful realities that face Native American communities, the filmmakers maintained this sense of responsibility they sought to establish.

The cast is comprised of established Native talent, including Saginaw Grant, Richard Ray Whitman, Casey Camp-Horinek, and Spence's fellow Twilight alumna Julia Jones. The film is also marked by excellent performances from its younger cast members, Alex Escarcega and Yancy Hawley, who play young Virgil and his brother Mose, respectively. The landscape of Montana is also beautifully utilized, as its unforgiving summer sunlight and wine-stained snow reveal it to be a polarizing character: at times brutally harsh, at others surprisingly merciful, much like the film itself. In this sense, the film is not only adapting Welch's text but also engaging in conversation with the film industry itself, historically known for relying...