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I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The first must-see film of the year.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

I actually agree with the person saying "Don't expect another Smoke Signals." SS in its own way deliberately tried to steer away from issues which might offend white sensibilities. This one doesn't. In fact it confronts them head on. It deals directly with colonialism, misdirected anger against whites, well meaning but clueless white liberals, and other minorities turning on each other. It's final message at the end, "As hopeless as things seem, keep singing," won't satisfy anyone expecting either a Hollywood happy-redemptive ending, or a throw your fist in the air pseudo revolutionary cliché. But it is more honest.

The Business of Fancy Dancing raises questions about native culture, both how it is viewed by natives and how it is viewed by others. Seymour, who longs to leave the reservation days behind him, cannot escape the reservation in his poetry. Mainstream America, it seems, is not interested in another poet who happens to be Indian, they want a real Indian poet. And thus the cultural struggle within Seymour is the defining theme of the film. Seymour views himself as better than the reservation. "Most smart Indians move away from the reservation," Seymour declares at one point. Using mainly literature, the film asks the question: What is an Indian? For many whites, the film suggests, an Indian is defined by blood. "In a great Native American novel . . . all of the white people will be Indian and all of the Indians will be ghosts," Seymour tells the audience at the beginning. Throughout the film, Indian history and culture is a common topic, often discussed in the form of a poem or a story. Seymour tells a story where he is giving blood. He tells the nurse he is Crazy Horse. He is told that the United States has taken too much of his blood already, he must wait one or two generations to donate again. The film suggests that an Indian is defined by the land. Thus, an Indian who leaves the reservation, like Seymour, abandons his identity. Yet, Seymour cannot escape his past. Nearly all of his poems are inspired by events on the reservation, usually events as they were experienced by others. The film uses Seymour's identity struggle to also suggest that once an Indian does physically leave his land, he will be unable to leave it in his mind.Seymour constantly profits from telling tales of reservation life – often passing off the experiences of others as his own. Those who remained on the reservation are resentful of Seymour. And he, in turn, is resentful of them. The film uses this tension between the characters to raise the issue of Indian identity, but it does not truly offer an answer to the question. Perhaps there is no answer. Seymour declares at one point that "The world is a prison; with wards . . . the reservation is just the worst of them." Is the reservation a prison? For Seymour it is. For him, it is the one place to which all things return. For the other Indians in the film, it is home – it is where they feel they belong.Everything culminates at the end of the film when two versions of Seymour appear at Mouse's funeral. One leaves the reservation; the other remains. No matter where Seymour goes, it seems, a part of his being will always remain on the reservation. Thus, it is his prison. But, perhaps, a greater statement is being made. For many native tribes, attachment to land is what defines them. Try as he may to leave the reservation, Seymour is forever a part of the land he once belonged to – forever connected to his people. Through his literature it becomes clear that, for Seymour, all things begin with – and return to – the land which raised him.

Those expecting another Smoke Signals should avoid this one. I was a big fan of Smoke Signals. Although the acting was fine, particularly from the star, Evan Adams and Michelle St. John, the film generally wanders around with a paper thin plot, leaving the actors without much to work with. While the movie has been heralded as innovative in allowing the actors to improvise, from my perspective it was disjointed and too heavily laden with flashbacks. The movie also ends abruptly, leaving the audience (here anyway) feeling cheated out of a story. It isn't bad enough to take anything away from Sherman Alexie's immense talent as a writer, but it shows that not all of his ideas translate well to film. Better luck next time.

At cost of risking the authorial fallacy, I'll say that I took this film to be autobiographical. One advantage of having a talented writer do a film about a talented writer is that, when the protagonist reads his writing, you don't cringe (we should also have first-rate musicians write the score in movies about fictional musicians). In "The Business of Fancydancing" the writing is gorgeous and is what gives the film substance and shining power. Seymour Polatkin/Sherman Alexie's poetry makes up the bulk of the screenplay, whether in the form of actual poems (read by the protagonist or other characters, printed on still frames, or rendered in song), or as part of the dialogue. The film is non-linear and non-realistic: people don't always speak like real people and events don't follow one another in chronological fashion. But Alexie is brutally honest in his portrayal of the truth of his characters, and the film finally feels much more authentic than most made-to-look-realistic, traditional movies. It is one of the paradoxes of fiction that realism is frequently better achieved through non-realistic means."Fancydancing" is a wrenching and angry movie about identity, belonging, and race. Leading one's life as a Native American is clearly no easy job, and Alexie takes a very unsentimental look at the ordeals and dilemmas that come with a Native heritage. His characters are not especially likeable, and all make questionable choices. As Alexie makes clear, however, there are no "right" choices. Whether you stay or go, conform or depart, life's going to getcha and people are going to be mad at you.The poetry beautifully depicts the pain of this dilemma while at the same time showing the redemption that comes with living the dilemma, sticking with it, not giving in. The images are occasionally hokey, and some sequences could have been cut without any loss to the overall effect of the film. But this is a brave film with a brave, unsparing vision, and it deserves a wide viewership.