Christmas in the clouds a funny, funny film

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Films like Christmas in the Clouds are the reason film festivals are held. I'm grateful for the opportunity to see this witty, charming and hilariously funny romantic comedy, shown at the Vancouver Film Festival in early October.

Let's face it, a small-budget film like Christmas in the Clouds (made for well under $5 million), with its all-Aboriginal cast-and a great one at that-is highly unlikely to headline at your local Famous Players Cinema complex. Despite the presence of well-known Canadian Aboriginal actor Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves) and veteran film actor M. Emmet Walsh (Blood Simple), the majority of actors are obscure faces to the general public.

The script, written with great respect and good humor by the film's director Kate Montgomery, is a perfect adaptation of the comedy-of-errors convention (think Shakespeare). In choosing to set the stage at a resort on an Indian reserve, Montgomery risks a small audience, but comes out gloriously with a gem of a movie, distinctive from the long list of tragic dramas and period epics that involve the Aboriginal story.

As the film begins, the narrator, Joe Clouds on Fire, prefaces by saying that in this story there would be no horse-riding, arrow shooting, bandwagon chasing Indians, and that this is a story of "nowaday Indians." Shot at Robert Redford's Sundance Resort in Utah, the film offers breathtaking scenery and a superb original musical score by Rita Coolidge, who plays a small roll.

While my fellow screening mates complained that the first few scenes were too slow, I found them to sufficiently contribute to establishing the major characters. Knowing what agenda each of the players has for arriving at the Native resort helps set the tone for the series of hilarious events they are to embark on.

Some of the funniest lines were delivered by Greene, who plays a vegetarian chef who whips up fabulous meals for his guests at the resort, then kills their appetites by telling them heart-wrenching stories about the butchered animals' past lives-complete with pet names.

"This one was special," he says to two guests about to dig in on their buffalo steak. "He had a starring role in Dances with Wolves."

Montgomery reportedly had a hard time getting Hollywood execs to finance the film-big surprise! But she says the subject is so close to her heart that she eventually managed to round up enough money from two dot-com companies and the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians in Wisconsin.

Her efforts are paying off, however. Her debut as a director received standing ovations at the Sundance Festival and left audiences at the Maui Film Festival breathless. As Clouds continues to tour major North American film festivals, the next big challenge is a theatrical release.

My detail-oriented screening mates pointed out that there are some inconsistencies from scene to scene, which will no doubt affect its chance for blockbusterdom. In one scene, my friends claim, the buttons on the main character's shirt were all done up. In the next, they weren't. I hadn't noticed. In fact, I was so busy laughing it didn't really matter.

Of course, no comedy would be complete without a momentary crisis and the eventual happy ending. All loose knots were tied and Montgomery managed to squeeze in a little bit of reality-which makes the ending even funnier and believable.

All in all, Christmas in the Clouds is a great movie. At 94 minutes, it's more worth your time than many money-pit, blockbuster wannabes.

As for the all-Native cast (the element of the film that the big shot film execs thought was so problematic that they wouldn't finance the project), I hadn't noticed. The only thing I did notice was their overwhelming talent and strength, which delivered exquisitely the range of human emotions in the film. That, I am convinced, is universal.