"The Indian wars aren't over. They're just getting started." That's the ominous warning that appears on the DVD case for Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action, but the conflicts in question are far different from the prairie battles of the Old West. Homeland unfolds in the modern arena of public protest and legislative action, profiling Native American tribal members who are defending their reservation lands and precious natural resources from further threat by corporate America's greedy sense of entitlement. With nearly all of North America's 317 reservations facing some kind of environmental threat (from strip mining, oil drilling, etc.), filmmaker Roberta Grossman uses four representative cases to illustrate the desperate nature of the problem: the Northern Cheyenne, struggling to protect their land from 75,000 proposed methane gas wells that could render the land unsuitable for ranching and farming; Eastern Navajos threatened by uranium mining in New Mexico; Penobscot Indians battling paper companies that have all but ruined the life-sustaining resources of the Penobscot River in Maine; and Gwich'in tribal members opposed to oil drilling in Alaska's politically embattled Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. A sense of repetitive dread is the film's only narrative weakness, as the tribal peoples are relatively powerless against the corporate and governmental juggernauts that hold all (or most) of the cards. And yet, there's ample evidence to suggest that their causes are anything but hopeless, and despite daunting odds, there's undeniable unity and nobility among the Native American groups who are profiled. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (J. Shannon)
Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action
(2005) 88 min. VHS or DVD: $295. Katahdin Productions (dist. by Bullfrog Films). PPR. Color cover. Closed captioned. ISBN: 1-59458-226-1 (vhs), 1-59458-267-X (dvd). Volume 21, Issue 1
Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action
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