SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Spoonixel Amateur movie with Big budget

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

michaeltaddonioa I bought the movie on VHS and made into a DVD. I feel that the film had a lot to say. I feel that the Canadian government was wrong in taking these children from their homes to a far away school and forced to give up their identity and to develop a new identity and lifestyle. It is fine to teach people such as Indians English, Mathematics, a trade, and other such things, but their culture and their identity as part of an ethnic group, racial minority, or whatever it is shouldn't be erased, forcibly or otherwise. The Canadian government could have brought the schooling to the Indians by establishing schools in the areas that the Indians lived in. This would serve the purposes of teaching the children subjects such as math, science, and English, among other things, but it would keeptheseyoung people together with their families, kept their identity, culture, and customs. In one of the reviews,it was stated that the children could tried to escape from the plane instead of staying in it. Those children were too frightened to think very much, if at all!This movie reminds me of a movie titled "Rabbit Proof Fence," in which Aborigine children in Australia were forcibly taken from their homes and were made into domestic servants. It serves as a fine parallel movie to "Where The Spirit Lives."No government or religion or anything else should keep any group from giving up its identity, life, culture, or anything else. An American Indian tribe was banned from practicing its religious ceremonies for years, but got that right back.A very fine and relevant film.

spiritualvista I have seen this movie many times. It never gets easier to watch. Historically the attitude towards educating the "heathens" is very close to policy (read Maureen Lux "Medicine that Walks"). As for the portrayal of the students, the abuse was pretty tame. If they actually showed what happened at the worst schools it never would have made it to production and could be classified as a snuff film. I've met people who've been in residential schools and are now in their late 70s and early 80s, one old lady never hugged her children for fear she'd be passing on sexual abuse. For the amount of awful events there were still some teachers that tried to make a positive impact on the lives of their students like we see in the film. Overall I'd recommend it for people as a starting point for research in the area. In one of the previous comments I read about "looking for a handle to get out of a plane", however if you don't know what a plane is and have never been in one that would be irrelevant. Michelle St. John is a good actress. She was also good in "conspiracy of silence" which I also recommend.

uphorea-1 I first saw this movie in middle school.....i remember this movie so much because it impacted me to such a degree. the emotional journey the main character takes you through helps as a viewer to understand the horrors that have been inflicted upon the natives of north America. I firmly believe that this movie is not only good for private home use, this is a great educational tool as well. I think that movies like this are why film is such a valuable teaching resource and such a valuable tool for educating a broad public audience at home via television. Overall a great film and i recommend it to teachers for their classes, and parents to show their children.

Richard Maurer (ram-30) Canadian cinema has left an indelible mark on films about Aboriginal people and films about life on the Prairies during the Great Depression. In the film "Where the Spirit Lives", these two areas meet. As of this writing, the imdb users have given this film a 9/10 rating and with valid cause. The storyline is strong yet ultimately predictable. The movie's main force comes with the contrast between the utopic world of the Aboriginal life on the reservation/trapline and the much dystopic world of the white man/Catholic residential school. The film begins with the heroine Komi enjoying an innocent, culturally rich,nearly paradisal life outdoors. The viewer is made to recall this opening scene when the antagonist Reverend Buckley(played to menacing perfection by David Hemblen) gives this line which seems to support the Catholic church's theory at the time: "These children come to us from a dead culture; it's like a millstone around their necks; our job is to remove this terrible burden and give them their freedom". Later, Reverend Buckley uses the analogy of knocking the old soil from a plant's roots to help it grow. These ironic lines help him justify taking these, as he calls them, "little brown children of the prairie" from their families and way of life and forcing them to learn the white ways. Another nice poetic touch from the film is when Rachel, a young student who was sexual abused by a FEMALE matron(another nice detour from the cliche)escapes to witness her people's Sun Dance ceremony where she can "Touch the sun and become a star". Rachel's subplot helps to reinforce both that their culture is anything but "Dead" and that life in the whiteman world is not a desirable as the priests and leaders at the school would like to think. Rachel's attempt to retain her culture's Sun Dance ritual is inspired by the heroine Komi's refusal to give up her Indian name, her language, her smudging(smoke and prayer)ritual, her rite of passage to womanhood, and mainly her contact with her family. Another nice ironic/symbolic contrast is the snippet of a hymn the children sing at the school: "All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God loves them all". This seems to neatly sum up the sentiment of the fimmakers. Yes, the Lord loves all people; it's too bad some of HIS PEOPLE don't. This is the prototype film on Residential Schools and it has everything a classic film on Aboriginal people should have including music by Buffy Sainte Marie and an appearance by actor Graham Greene.