Chase Spencer stars in Winter In The Blood. Photo from Ranchwater Films
The New York Times reviews Winter In The Blood, starring Chaske Spencer as an Indian man in Montana:
Like its broken antihero, an alcoholic Blackfoot Indian named Virgil First Raise (Chaske Spencer), “Winter in the Blood” lacks energy and volition. What it doesn’t lack is compassion, either for the wounds of childhood or the trap of ethnicity.
Vimeo: Winter in the Blood (Official Trailer)
Filming in their home state, Montana, the brothers Alex Smith and Andrew Smith (adapting a 1974 novel by the Native American writer James Welch) sweat to translate Virgil’s existential pain into a visual narrative. Scenes dissolve and bleed into one another as he staggers between a small, arid town and the farmhouse he shares with his tart-tongued mother and his silent grandmother. Rarely without a flask or bottle at his lips (we first meet him passed out in a ditch), Virgil has a bloated, tipsy gait and a lost-boy look. He also has a runaway wife and a black hole where his identity should be. Similar to the brothers’ previous feature, “The Slaughter Rule” (2002), “Winter” buckles beneath male conflict and heavy-handed metaphors.Get the Story:
Montana Skies, Childhood Wounds (The New York Times 8/20) More Reviews:
The literary adaptation Winter In The Blood is as confused as its drunken hero (AV Club 8/19)
Winter In the Blood Has Great Scenes But Tries the Patience (OC Weekly 8/19) Also Today:
A Native American Story That Leaves 'Feathers Or Leather' Cliches Behind (NPR 8/19)
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