Native Sun News Today: 'Neither Wolf Nor Dog' takes on our collective guilt
Neither Wolf Nor Dog’ – a recognition of culpability
Film Review by Kat Holmgren
Native Sun News Today Correspondent
nativesunnews.today
RAPID CITY - At the Journey’s showing of the movie Neither Wolf Nor Dog directed by Steve Lewis Simpson and starring Dave Bald Eagle, Christopher Sweeney, and Richard Ray Whitman, most of the seats were full. And most of those seats were full of white people.
As I listened to the conversations going on around me, I could tell that the majority of them had read the book or had already seen the movie. They appeared to be, for the most part, intelligent, polite, well educated people. Of course, how do you tell these things, right?
Well, they were respectful, I didn’t see any MAGA hats, no one spit tobacco on the floor, I had seen many of them around at other cultural events, and no one used their phone during the movie.
That’s a big sign for me. Only rude, stupid people use their phones in a venue where people have paid good money to experience something real. And Neither Wolf Nor Dog is real. The question is, do people want to face up to that reality?
Kent Nerbern, the author of Neither Wolf nor Dog, tells a story about trying to write another man’s life story, his beliefs, his history, his inner spirit. An Elder Native’s daughter calls him and rather enigmatically says her grandpa read a book that Nerbern had written and he wants him to write his book. However, he doesn’t talk on the phone, and he’s old, so Nerbern shouldn’t take too long getting there.
So with no further ado, the author, a white man, packs up his backpack with a few books (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Black Elk Speaks are a couple of titles), his French coffee press, two thermoses and his cell phone to help this Native man, whom he’s never seen, heard, nor spoken to, write a book about a collection of thoughts and musings he’s collected over the years. No spoiler alerts here. Let’s just say things take a sharp left-hand turn.
It’s seems clear that Nerbern has sacrificed a bit to do this job. He’s getting no money, he’s left his family and traveled nearly 800 miles on his own dime to help out a guy he’s ever even talked to. He makes the traditional offering of tobacco to the old man, and is very respectful. Dan, the Elder, talks until Nerbern says something to offend him (and if you’re white, you probably don’t even know what it is) and off Dan goes to bed. No good night, good bye, see ya later, no nothin’. Just gets up and goes to bed.
Enter Grover. This guy makes Dan look positively kind and polite. Whenever Nerbern says or does anything the least bit ignorant of Lakota culture or history, Grover lands on him like a duck on a June bug. Grover is an angry man. He is angry at white men for what they have done to his people and he makes no secret of it. Dan is angry too, but he prays more and while there is not acceptance or understanding, there is a willingness to look for the good in white people.
Nerbern is ready to call it quits when Dan’s granddaughter tells him about the horrible abuses he suffered in the Indian Schools. And the numbers of Lakota children who were forced to go to the Indian Schools. Schools run by white people.
Ultimately the two men, Grover and Dan, sort of kidnap Nerbern and take him on a long road trip down the back “roads” of the Pine Ridge Reservation. They end up at Wounded Knee. There, Nerbern steps out of the car into the wind whistling the prairie grass around. He hears the stories. He sees the graves. He feels the spirits. He watches Dan pray. He walks among the tombstones. He cries. He lays down in the dry grass sobbing, and is carried off to sleep.
Any more about the movie itself, and I would be writing spoilers and falling action. So I give the movie, as far as action, acting, believability, and all around keeping my interest, 8.5 out of 10. The book was better.
But the true value of a movie is its affect on the audience. How did they react? What did it make me feel? Did I leave more contemplative about the issues that were presented than I was when I came in? Was I more aware? Did I feel a call to action? Well, the answer is yes. In that aspect the movie gets 10 out of 10. And this is why.