Wounded Heart: Pine Ridge and the Sioux

Most feature films about the Sioux Indians (such as Dances with Wolves) depict the loss of land and traditional ways of life to rapacious American “manifest destiny” 19th century expansion, revealing ignoble moments in our history. Oliver Tuthill's Wounded Heart, by contrast, is a documentary about contemporary Sioux life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Faced with mold-infested houses, substandard healthcare, and high rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, and domestic violence, the average Sioux member lives to the age of 47. “Nowhere else in the Western hemisphere is life expectancy so short,” remarks American Indian activist Russell Means. Combining on-location footage and interviews with Sioux and government officials familiar with the problems of reservation life, Wounded Heart tells remarkable, moving stories that testify to the resilience of the Sioux people and culture. Jay Red Hawk, for example, broke the cycle of alcoholism in his family and now makes his own bows and arrows to hunt and prepare food as his ancestors did. This film provides a haunting context for the words of Sioux medicine man Black Elk quoted at the end, “Maybe there's a root of the sacred tree of life still alive. We must find that root and nourish it, so the tree can once again grow and flower and mend our nation's hoop.” Recommended. [Note: two other documentaries are newly available by Tuthill: Complex: Life Inside a Section 8 Apartment and Future Stars: An Inside Look at a Modeling School, priced at $24.95 each.] Aud: H, C, P. (J. Wadland)