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Director: Heather Rae Producer:  Marcheline Bertrand, Russell Friedenberg, Rob Ganger, James Haven, Angelina Jolie, Elyse Katz, Heather Rae, Chief Harry B. Wallace Stars: John Trudell, Robert Redford, Kris Kristofferson, Amy Ray, Val Kilmer MPAA Rating: NR Year of Release: 2005 Running Time : 80 minutes

A film review by Sara Schieron TRUDELL is an 80-minute documentary about the life and work of American Indian Activist John Trudell. Currently playing at the Red Vic, this doc mixes recent footage of the activist in interview with stock and news footage of the activist in rallies and concert. Following the chronology of Trudell's career, the film paints a concise but often effecting portrait of the man actor Gary Farmer called "the Native people's prophet of these times, our Socrates". Littered with interviews with recognized artist/activists such as Robert Redford, Bonnie Raitt, Sam Shepard and Jackson Browne, TRUDELL successfully establishes the legacy of this man whose life and work has spanned the most public days of the American Indian Movement, to his most recent successes, writing poetry put to Native music. The film cites the beginning of Trudell's work as a spokesman in 1970, with the American Indian Movement's (AIM) inhabitation of Alcatraz. Referring to a treaty that offered American Indians Claim to unused US Land, AIM moved into the defunct penal colony. With plans to transform the colony into a permanent living grounds from which AIM would export Native American Arts, the activism was terminated after 21 months, when the Federal Government removed AIM from the island. Following this, Trudell married his second wife, Tina, and became involved in the reaction to the Alcatraz removal. The "Trail of Broken Treaties", a nationwide AIM action collected American Indians from across the country and grouped them in front of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington D.C. It was at this rally that Trudell burned a US Flag on the steps of the Bureau and 12 hours later his home suffered an unexplainable fire. He lost his wife (pregnant at the time), her mother and their two small children. Following this, he entered into political exile. The notion that "we are one" is a recurrent theme in Trudell's words and actions, and this "one-ness" is reflected by Rae's integration of the history of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and its poet icon. In tandem with this theme, the film poses an historical repetition of deceit perpetrated by the US government, against the Native American - and this deceit is repeated many times in Trudell's lifetime. In a trip to Alcatraz, 30 years after the AIM occupation, the director asks Trudell, "How does it feel to be back here today?" Looking out at the bay, Trudell says, "I've seen more than one Alcatraz". Mirroring the musical poetry hybrid performed by Trudell and his band, director Heather Rae enters into many expressive passages narrated and scored by Trudell's musical poetry. These passages sometimes effectively give the viewer emotional and personal exposure to the subjects so key to Trudell's spiritualism and politics. Making Trudell's ideas accessible serves its own activist purpose and the film's layering of event coverage, interview and movement history rolls the man the movement and the meaning together both efficiently but effectively, thereby offering exposure to an underexposed movement and a man who serves as a symbol for a people and a purpose.