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"I've often heard of what the settler thinks of my people--the noble savage, free from the vices of the Western world, ignorant of its superiority. I find that ironic. We were the first Americans. The ignorant ones found a land with thousands of people living on it, then said they discovered it. King Phillip's War, the First Indian War, whatever history calls it, may have spelled our eventual doom... but I begrudge none of it. Those were the years when the first Americans banded together against the endless waves of white that threatened to drown us all. Through peace and through violence, we proved the noble savage a lie. We fought back."
– Chief Wonalancet, Let the River Smooth Your Edges
A Deadly Game of Chess: Quote
The young Keme of the Pennacook is next in line for the chiefdom. Unruly and desperate to prove himself to a tribe who doubts his leadership, he leads his people through the fighting of King Phillip's War. At odds with his pacifist father Wonalancet, it all comes to a head when the inevitable fight with the white man comes. It's father against son as the tribe tears itself apart debating whether to fight for their lives as their world crumbles around them.
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Let the River Smooth Your Edges was inspired by the true story of Wonalancet, who during King Phillip's War, was so resolute in his belief that the white man and Indian should not fight that, when he was captured and his tribe came to save him, he refused to leave with them (this is how the movie ends). Serious in tone and large in scale, it is the rare war epic that features no white (speaking) roles and truly dives into Native American culture from the perspective of one, specific tribe with one, specific story. Members of the current Pennacook have been involved in the writing and research process of the film.
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Like many war epics before it, the film raises questions on the morality of war and the different approaches to it: pacifism, political realism, or just war philosophy. But, it attacks this discussion from the angle of what can be done before the war breaks out. Battle only comes in the final third; the majority of the movie focuses on the dread, the disagreements, the breakout of factions and tribalism and the echochamber as the people divide and quarrel when faced with
Armageddon.
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