I had to watch The Indian Horse for a class a couple of years ago and it was one of the most heartbreaking movies. It was a very hard watch, not because I didn't know about the things that happened in residential schools, but because seeing is different than just reading or hearing about it. It portrayed the intergenerational trauma that Indigenous people suffer. Starting with Saul's parents deciding to take his sick brother to a church rather than trying to heal him in any way. I assumed that his parents were survivors of residential schools, although it doesn't explicitly state that in the movie. It shows in the way they did not listen to Saul's grandmother about healing the brother. They left Saul with his grandmother, who passed away, and then Saul was forcibly taken to a residential school. The movie follows Saul and how he handles the trauma he experienced in the residential school.
I decided to check and see if there were any articles about the movie, there was tons. All positive except for one. One group of Indigenous people were upset because the director wasn't Indigenous and they felt it was was a white man's movie with a white man's view. They felt that this was not a story that should be told by a white person. I can understand their view on this, that is the Indigenous people's trauma, and a white person could never fully understand what they went through. The producers did agree to an interview and explained their side of things. These are some of the things that they had to say:
* Richard Wagamese, the author, chose them
* They were not the only one interested in making a movie, there was an Indigenous producer that was also interested and made a higher bid.
* Richard Wagamese has a say in a lot of things throughout the making of the film, including who wrote the screenplay
“We just felt this was an important story that Indigenous and non-Indigenous people needed to tell together because it’s about our shared history,” So it is not so much a white man telling it from a white man’s view, but a collaborative effort that includes Indigenous perspectives and voices to accurately portray the story and its significance. Of course, it is important that the Indigenous people tell their own stories from their own perspectives. But it is also important that we sometimes share stories, as we shared the past.