Review of Where the Spirit Lives

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.