Medicine
River deals with the theme of leaving the reservation to better yourself in
a career that would not be the same on the reservation, but then returning back
home to realizing what you have left behind.
Will has left the reservation long ago to pursue a career in
photography by moving to Canada. He later
has to return home because of a death in his family and winds up getting
involved in a calendar/book project, and even finds romance with Louise.
After all the things Will gets involved in, he realizes that maybe
staying on the reservation is really what he wants to do now. This concept on leaving the reservation and
returning home is the opposite of The
Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. In the book, Junior decides he wants to leave
the reservation to better his education, and his life. Unlike Will, he does not decide that leaving
was not really what he wants to do anymore.
In this film, the Native American
women could be looked at as a strong independent woman through the character
Louise. Although she becomes romantic with
Will throughout the movie, it is not revealed that she is a couple months
pregnant until almost the end of the movie.
She then goes on to tell Will that she does not want to ever get
married, enjoys living on her own, and plans to raise her child on her
own. All of the decisions that Louise
makes shows that she plans to be independent, and wants to be able to say she
did things on her own. Louise shows
Native American women, and even all women, can do what they want, work, be
independent, and do not need the help of a man to do everything in life.
I agree that in this movie it shows women as being strong and independent. Louise wants to be independent and shows that she is already doing a good job of that, living on her own and having a good job. She is planning to have a baby and raise it alone without the help of the father, or any man for that matter. Besides Louise, Medicine River also shows the strength, independence and goodness of women with the last elder for the calendar. She lives alone in the valley but is very smart, humorous and looked up to. In many other native american literature and films it seems that more often women are portrayed negatively, such as adulterous or evil, or not given much of a role at all instead of smart and independent.
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