Week 4: The Business of Fancydancing (2002)

The Business of Fancydancing (2002)

Directed: Sherman Alexie
Produced: Larry Estes, Scott Rosenfelt
Written: Sherman Alexie
Rating: Not rated, does contain strong language

Watch online: Available through netflix http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Business_of_Fancydancing/60028435?strackid=40a922183e9c6a9e_0_srl&strkid=1064714102_0_0&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&trkid=222336

Review: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E04EFD7153DF93BA25753C1A9649C8B63

By Elvis Mitchell

''The Business of Fancydancing,'' the directorial debut of the novelist and screenwriter Sherman Alexie, is an often affecting, low-budget melodrama that is occasionally sabotaged by its economy of means: the image quality is sometimes so poor that it's like watching the pixel breakup on digital cable. But although the film is initially clumsy and a little hard to follow, Mr. Alexie takes his time in setting his characters in play, and the visual clunkiness becomes secondary to the eloquent emotional desolation.

''Fancydancing,'' which opens today in Manhattan, is difficult material -- a drama about self-destructiveness -- and the novice director is sometimes tangled in the biggest trap inherent in such a project. Presenting such a motif means that almost everybody on screen sees himself as a victim and is prone to displays of sloppy articulation about self-loathing. This must be countered with a directorial toughness that Mr. Alexie, a critically acclaimed American Indian writer, has shown in his prose more than in ''Smoke Signals,'' his first filmed script (directed by Chris Eyre), which was a show-offy exercise in suffering.

The film's narrative is told mostly from the perspective of Seymour Polatkin (Evan Adams), a gay writer and poet and a member of the Spokane tribe. It starts with a high school flashback of Seymour and his friends Aristotle (Gene Tagaban) and Mouse (Swil Kanim), an ill-fated violinist who never shirked telling the truth no matter how painful. When he dies, he leaves as much misery in his wake as he did while he was alive.

The difference between Mouse and Seymour is that Seymour throws the verbal acid back into his own face. He mocks his own shifting psychological identity, giving each of the fans at a book signing a different story about his background as he autographs his book for them. Mouse treated honesty as a weapon, and his duty was to subject whoever happened to be in his line of sight to coruscating rants.

Mouse's funeral takes Seymour back to the reservation, where he's forced to exhume his past, much of which still lives there. This includes Agnes (Michelle St. John), the half-Jewish, half-Spokane woman he briefly dated before realizing that he was ''two-spirited'' -- gay. She's involved with Aristotle, who has no trouble labeling Seymour a sell-out and a deserter of his people. This seems harsh yet reflects what Seymour thinks of himself. He has a particularly funny and bitter monologue -- ''How to Write the Great American Indian Novel'' -- that he uses on himself in which he observes: ''Indians must see visions, and white people can have some visions if they are in love with Indians.''

Mr. Alexie doesn't make Aristotle and Mouse one-dimensional poles between which Seymour exists. Aristotle has squandered his gifts and lies about complaining and drinking instead of doing anything with his life; he's bitter because he was afraid to leave the reservation. And his anger is made worse by Agnes's respect for Seymour, despite the damage he did to her.

The story is fragmented, like a poem, shards that can be assembled into a narrative. There are a few too many devices, like a television interviewer (Rebecca Carroll) whose primary function seems to be to give Seymour a chance to display his contradictory nature. And his white boyfriend, Steven (Kevin Phillip), is saddled with some unfortunate lines to broadcast his sympathy, like ''They're not your tribe anymore. I'm your tribe.''

But casting Mr. Adams was a thoughtful gambit by the director. The actor's vague boyishness suggests any number of ethnicities; his indistinct handsomeness is a physical manifestation of his own confusion about who he is. (Mr. Adams also appeared in ''Smoke Signals.'') The movie is as much about Seymour's need for spirituality as anything else, and his attempt to reject it is a denial of his own identity.

But the confessional aspect of the story is often pushed a little too hard; the characters are too eager to let us know exactly what's going on in their heads.

The director's dry sincerity leavens the sentiment of this quasi-autobiographical film, a tale about the burden of constantly being asked who you are and where you come from -- a question that artists of color constantly hear, either from others or themselves. Mr. Alexie is smart enough to know it's never satisfactorily answered. "