I haven't written a "movie moment" in quite a while.
Here is the end of the movie Smoke Signals, screenplay by Sherman Alexei, as mentioned above.
[Spoiler alert, obviously, since it's the end.]
This is not only one of the funniest and smartest movies, it's got one of the most profound endings on a topic we don't hear much about--forgiving our fathers.
The young Coeur d'Alene Indian man Thomas recites this poem, "Forgiving Our Fathers," for his friend Victor, who is throwing his father's ashes in the river.
Victor's father left the family when Victor was young. When Victor drives from the Pacific northwest to Arizona to pick up his father's ashes, he finds in his father's wallet a photo of his father with him and his mom.
On the back, his father has written one word: Home.
Victor reads it and takes out his knife and cuts off his beautiful long hair.
His expression of multidimensional grief came to me the morning after my mother's suicide--father, mother, what's the difference?--and I knelt on the floor with the kitchen scissors and did the same. Later I put some locks of my hair on my mother's coffin, before it went into the cremation oven.
The poem "Forgiving Our Fathers" is by Dick Lourie.
Here is the end of the movie Smoke Signals, screenplay by Sherman Alexei, as mentioned above.
[Spoiler alert, obviously, since it's the end.]
This is not only one of the funniest and smartest movies, it's got one of the most profound endings on a topic we don't hear much about--forgiving our fathers.
The young Coeur d'Alene Indian man Thomas recites this poem, "Forgiving Our Fathers," for his friend Victor, who is throwing his father's ashes in the river.
Victor's father left the family when Victor was young. When Victor drives from the Pacific northwest to Arizona to pick up his father's ashes, he finds in his father's wallet a photo of his father with him and his mom.
On the back, his father has written one word: Home.
Victor reads it and takes out his knife and cuts off his beautiful long hair.
His expression of multidimensional grief came to me the morning after my mother's suicide--father, mother, what's the difference?--and I knelt on the floor with the kitchen scissors and did the same. Later I put some locks of my hair on my mother's coffin, before it went into the cremation oven.
The poem "Forgiving Our Fathers" is by Dick Lourie.
