MagicalPJ The Business of Fancy Dancing raises questions about native culture, both how it is viewed by natives and how it is viewed by others. Seymour, who longs to leave the reservation days behind him, cannot escape the reservation in his poetry. Mainstream America, it seems, is not interested in another poet who happens to be Indian, they want a real Indian poet. And thus the cultural struggle within Seymour is the defining theme of the film. Seymour views himself as better than the reservation. "Most smart Indians move away from the reservation," Seymour declares at one point. Using mainly literature, the film asks the question: What is an Indian? For many whites, the film suggests, an Indian is defined by blood. "In a great Native American novel . . . all of the white people will be Indian and all of the Indians will be ghosts," Seymour tells the audience at the beginning. Throughout the film, Indian history and culture is a common topic, often discussed in the form of a poem or a story. Seymour tells a story where he is giving blood. He tells the nurse he is Crazy Horse. He is told that the United States has taken too much of his blood already, he must wait one or two generations to donate again. The film suggests that an Indian is defined by the land. Thus, an Indian who leaves the reservation, like Seymour, abandons his identity. Yet, Seymour cannot escape his past. Nearly all of his poems are inspired by events on the reservation, usually events as they were experienced by others. The film uses Seymour's identity struggle to also suggest that once an Indian does physically leave his land, he will be unable to leave it in his mind.Seymour constantly profits from telling tales of reservation life – often passing off the experiences of others as his own. Those who remained on the reservation are resentful of Seymour. And he, in turn, is resentful of them. The film uses this tension between the characters to raise the issue of Indian identity, but it does not truly offer an answer to the question. Perhaps there is no answer. Seymour declares at one point that "The world is a prison; with wards . . . the reservation is just the worst of them." Is the reservation a prison? For Seymour it is. For him, it is the one place to which all things return. For the other Indians in the film, it is home – it is where they feel they belong.Everything culminates at the end of the film when two versions of Seymour appear at Mouse's funeral. One leaves the reservation; the other remains. No matter where Seymour goes, it seems, a part of his being will always remain on the reservation. Thus, it is his prison. But, perhaps, a greater statement is being made. For many native tribes, attachment to land is what defines them. Try as he may to leave the reservation, Seymour is forever a part of the land he once belonged to – forever connected to his people. Through his literature it becomes clear that, for Seymour, all things begin with – and return to – the land which raised him.

gradyharp While we as a country are discovering/acknowledging the struggles of the different sects within the Middle East, tribal differences that are longstanding and divisive and painful, along comes another sensitive story about Native Americans in this country and how the scars of past and ongoing abuses of our 'reservation resolution' have affected the original peoples of this land. Sherman Alexie, a fine poet and novelist, has transformed his written works into a film that showers the viewer with insights into a problem about which few are cognizant - intratribal differences that provide schisms within the only root that binds.Seymour Poltakin (the very talented Evan Adams) is a famous poet who happens to be both Native American and gay. He is called back to his Reservation in Spokane, Washington for the funeral of his childhood friend Mouse (Swil Kanim) only to confront all of the reasons he has left the Reservation for the 'white man's world' where he has found both financial and emotional success. Seymour's best friend Aristotle (Gene Tagaban) had originally left the Reservation to go to college with Seymour, but quickly soured to the prejudiced outside world and returned to his Reservation and to an unfortunate life of alcoholism and drug abuse. The bulk of the storyline revolves around how these two once devoted friends parted ways, the philosophies of each are explored, and though Seymour finds moments of love in his home space, he is still content to return to his white man lover and his life he has chosen.There are many very tender and moving moments in this film: when Seymour is in conversation with Agnes (Michelle St. John) and when Agnes intones the Indian chants and songs at the funeral; Seymour's dialogues with his lover; scenes of quiet while Aristotle abuses himself with drugs; the weaving in and out of the beautiful dancing that flows through the film. The problem with the movie is the disparity of approaches in telling the story: an interview situation between Rebecca Carroll and Evan Adams is well written but breaks the mood of the poetic form of the story. The film is obviously low budget and in this case, for this viewer, the rough hand-held camera technique adds a quality of reality to what we are watching.The overall effect at the end of the film is a pang of pain in the heart having witnessed the generations of 'isolation' and the segregation of the Native Americans into spaces both geographical and sociological that have undermined a tremendously valuable asset to our history. That role of shame is one that will never leave us, and it is a gift that artists like Sherman Alexie can bring this to the public's attention. Recommended. Grady Harp

brianowatkins Those expecting another Smoke Signals should avoid this one. I was a big fan of Smoke Signals. Although the acting was fine, particularly from the star, Evan Adams and Michelle St. John, the film generally wanders around with a paper thin plot, leaving the actors without much to work with. While the movie has been heralded as innovative in allowing the actors to improvise, from my perspective it was disjointed and too heavily laden with flashbacks. The movie also ends abruptly, leaving the audience (here anyway) feeling cheated out of a story. It isn't bad enough to take anything away from Sherman Alexie's immense talent as a writer, but it shows that not all of his ideas translate well to film. Better luck next time.

davidl-7 I saw this at the Portland International Film Festival on Feb. 10, 2002. Writer-director Alexie said they were still tinkering with it and might add in some scenes we did not see.The "plot" is fairly sketchy. Seymour Polatkin, a young and successful gay poet who left the Spokane Reservation to go to college and settle in Seattle, returns to the res for the funeral of a close friend, a violinist named "Mouse" who committed suicide. Also present are their childhood buddy Aristotle Joseph (the rather stereotypical "fierce Indian") and Agnes, a half-Indian, half-Jewish woman with whom Seymour had a passionate college affair before accepting his homosexuality, who has returned to the res to teach.Alexie regulars Cynthia Geary and Elaine Miles, familiar from "Northern Exposure" and Alexie's last film project, "Smoke Signals," are on hand in cameos.The movie is a sort of collage, with many flashbacks, scenes of various characters dancing in colorful costumes on a black stage, and cheap video footage the characters ostensibly shot of each other. The acting is mostly okay, though rarely inspired; the writing much the same. Camerawork is rather dull, though Alexie chooses lovely landscapes, moods, and colors for his shots.A narrative trick of questionable utility is "The Interviewer": a young black female journalist pinions several of the characters (particularly Seymour and Aristotle) with tough, condescending, and sometimes obvious questions in that same no-space of black stage. The writing for these scenes is decent, but I wasn't convinced of the need for them.Alexie readily admits to doing much improvisation and gutwork -- the film was shot in 14 days with 6 additional days of fill-in shooting -- and he likes to leave plenty of questions unanswered, from the Russian origins of his protagonist's name to the meaning of the dancing sequences, the reasons for Mouse's suicide, or a rather brutal scene where Ari beats up a stranded white motorist and insists Mouse join him. This is fine, and I had no problem with most of it; in fact, it was the more obvious imagery, such as Seymour slowly and dispiritedly doffing his dance outfit toward the end of the story when he leaves the res again, presumably forever, that I found irritating.Alexie said he was extremely annoyed by such films as "Finding Forrester," where a writer's talents (both the veteran's and the rookie's) are ballyhooed but never actually shown, so Seymour reads a number of his poems on the soundtrack over the visual action.In sum, this is a fair, promising independent feature that is hardly outstanding but takes some laudable risks and provides further welcome exposure to Native American culture, actors, and ideas.