Review of Education Of Little Tree, The

Introduction

The story here has bizarre connections. Originally written by Forrest Carter (pseudonym for Asa Carter) it was claimed that this was his autobiographical account of being an American Indian (Cherokee) orphan growing up in the Deep South. It`s a bit of a fib though because Asa Carter was actually a Ku Klux Klan member and political speechwriter. Being a KKK member meant he was white, not an Indian after all, so the book was reclassified as fiction. This certainly puts an interesting spin on the story.

Little Tree is an orphaned 8-year old who goes to live with his grandparents up in the Great Smoke Mountains. His grandma (Tantoo Cardinal) is a quiet Cherokee while his grandpa (James Cromwell) is a white freethinking man of the mountain. Then there`s the medicine man, Shaman Willow John (Graham Greene) who relays some history of the Cherokee oppression under the white man to Little Tree.

This can be a confusing time for a child who`s unsure of his heritage and identity.

Video

Presented with a 1.85:1 widescreen enhanced video transfer, The Education of Little Tree looks very good throughout. Colours are well balanced and detail is good while blacks are what they should be, black. There is very minor print damage in one scene but this isn`t enough to take away from some of the lush photography on display.

Audio

The English soundtrack comes with Dolby Digital 5.1 and sounds solid. There`s no rear surround action apart from some ambient sound with most of the sound coming from across the front stage. Dialogue is clear; though the subtitles are handy for picking out those words I`ve never heard of before.

Features

Nothing. There are however tons of subtitles and a few foreign language audio tracks.

Conclusion

The Education of Little Tree is very much skewed to a family audience and knowing that a pro-white male wrote it you might think it inappropriate material for the big screen. The adaptation to screen is anything but pro-white propaganda and instead, writer/director Richard Friedenberg adapted the novel with a positive statement on Native American spirituality; it`s about as far from offensive as you can get.

Little Tree finds himself learning the ways of the mountain and life with his grandparents, to being taken away by social services for not attending school. Forced to attend the Notched Gap Indian School he faces a stint in solitary confinement for innocently speaking the truth. Eventually he finds his moment to leave the school and return to the mountains where he remains. That`s pretty much the essence of it, give or take a few things (like whiskey running!).

The film idled away the time and wasn`t bad. It`s just not something you`d have on your shortlist to rent for the kids as the pace is perhaps too slow with little on screen action. Also, the ponderings of Little Tree as a young Cherokee Indian, getting to grips with his heritage and becoming more spiritual, isn`t the kind of subject matter that a younger audience are going to be predisposed to seeing, which leaves me to wonder who the target audience for this little film is.

Despite not knowing whom this film will appeal to other than families, the characters and cast performed well and the story had some interest. James Cromwell (The Green Mile, L.A. Confidential and Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves, Die Hard with a Vengeance) are known names and play their parts with subtlety, though there`s very little for Greene as Willow John. Little Tree (Joseph Ashton) himself, as a child, plays without pretension and shows a child`s eagerness to learn.

As nice as this little film is with its gentle insight, it`s not really something you`d go out of your way to seeing. It`s a bit too long at 110-minutes and will likely have the less patient ones itching to get to the end.