Indian Horse (film)

Indian Horse is a Canadian drama film, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and received a general theatrical release in 2018. The film was directed by Stephen S. Campanelli and written by Dennis Foon.
An adaptation of Ojibwe author Richard Wagamese's 2012 novel "Indian Horse", the film centres on Saul Indian Horse, a young Canadian First Nations boy who survives the Indian residential school system to become a star ice hockey player. The film and the book highlight the story behind Canada's indigenous residential schools. The film stars Sladen Peltier as Saul at age 6, Forrest Goodluck as Saul at age 15, and Ajuawak Kapashesit as Saul at age 22, as well as Edna Manitowabi, Evan Adams, Michiel Huisman, Michael Murphy and Martin Donovan.
The film was originally slated for production as a television film to air on Super Channel, but instead premiered as a theatrical film after Super Channel filed for bankruptcy in 2016. The film was shot primarily in Sudbury and Peterborough, Ontario.
Plot.
The Indian Horse family, including six-year-old Saul and his older brother, retreat in canoes deep into the wild to avoid the authorities after Saul's older brother is left seriously ill by his time in an Indian residential school. Saul resolves never to go to a residential school, but his parents, converted to Christianity, are determined their eldest son will go to heaven. When the boy dies, they take him away to be blessed by a priest after he dies from his illness, leaving Saul with his grandmother deep in the woods. The parents don’t return.
Saul and his grandmother stay and camp, but once cold weather starts, his grandmother decides they must continue their trek towards their ancestral lands. After their canoe capsizes, they must huddle to stay warm at night; they continue their journey on foot through snow. When his grandmother dies, Saul is discovered by the authorities and forcibly moved to a residential school. There, he meets a boy named Lonnie, who cannot speak English. The top official, Father Quinney, and his nun deem Lonnie an unsuitable name and call him Aaron, and forbid the use of the boys' Ojibwe language, beating Lonnie when he cannot comply.
In the school, Saul witnesses the nuns and instructors abuse the children, and struggles to survive. One instructor, Father Gaston Leboutilier, seems to want to change the school. He convinces Father Quinney to allow a new outdoor activity, ice hockey. Saul does not meet the age requirement to play, but he convinces Father Leboutilier to give him the job of maintaining the rink in the early morning, which allows him to spend time on the ice. From watching televised hockey games and practicing in the mornings, Saul also begins learning techniques. When one of the school's players is injured, Saul steps forward as a substitute and astounds Father Leboutilier with his talent. Saul declines to join Lonnie's escape attempt, as Saul was looking forward to playing; Lonnie is recaptured and punished.
Saul shows remarkable hockey skills on the school team. When he becomes a teen, the school allows Saul to leave and move into a foster home with an Indigenous family in a mining town, where he can further pursue hockey. Saul joins an all-Indigenous team called the Moose, who travel to games between Indian reserves, and receives the jersey number 13, "for luck". Winning a key game, Saul is treated as a star player in "Hockey Night in Canada" style, but the team faces racial discrimination and beatings afterwards in a pub.
Saul attracts the notice of the Toronto Monarchs, a feeder team for the Toronto Maple Leafs, but does not want to leave his friends in the Moose. His team insists he take the offer, and he reluctantly joins the Monarchs. There, he keeps his number 13, which no one else wants due to triskaidekaphobia. Initially excelling, he is nevertheless put off by a racist caricature of him in the newspaper. On the ice, Saul becomes the target of racist slurs from opponents and teammates alike, while the audience throws toy Indian figures onto the ice. Pushed into violence by many fouls, he is confined to the penalty box. He is stunned when Father Leboutilier appears one night, professing pride in where hockey has taken Saul, and admitting the abuses in the school were wrong. Father Leboutilier tells Saul that the church is sending him to work in Africa. Leboutilier's appearance causes Saul to have flashbacks to the abuses committed at the school, and he leaves the team.
Taking odd low-level jobs, he drifts from place to place between 1979 and 1989. He sees Lonnie in an alley, drinking liquor. Saul drinks a lot and develops alcoholism. Facing serious health issues after severe damage to his liver, Saul is accepted by the Indigenous rehabilitation centre Rising Dawn. The group therapy leader, seeing how sad and withdrawn Saul is, encourages him to confront the root of his suffering. Saul travels back to the now closed school, where it is revealed that he had been sexually molested by Father Leboutilier. He makes a pilgrimage by canoe back to his ancestral lands, and then returns to his foster family, where he is happily welcomed by his foster family and former Moose teammates.
Reception.
Released to average reviews, "Indian Horse" was a box office bomb, garnering only $1.69 million on an $8 million budget. "Indian Horse" was the highest-grossing English Canadian film of 2018.
Critical response.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 79%, based on reviews from 14 critics, with an average rating of 5.90/10.
Boyd van Hoeij of The Hollywood Reporter called it "Important but not very nuanced."
Accolades.
The film won the top award at the 2017 Vancouver International Film Festival and the Kumeyaay Eagle Award for Best Native American Film at the 2018 San Diego International Film Festival.
Sladen Peltier was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the 6th Canadian Screen Awards, but he lost to Ethan Hawke in "Maudie".
Campanelli was nominated for the Directors Guild of Canada's DGC Discovery Award.
Controversy.
Minor controversy erupted over the casting of Will Strongheart in the supporting role of Virgil in the film due to the actor's history of criminal domestic violence. Strongheart has attributed his past actions to problems with drugs and alcohol, stating that he regrets such actions, and has reformed since attaining sobriety in 2010.