T
he Spirit soundtrack's been rolling around the house a little bit lately, so I'm going to talk about the Horse Movie again.
What is Spirit about? Or, rather, what should it be about? Something I think is interesting about the movie is that it's not a coming-of-age flick -- Spirit is essentially a king, at the height of his powers when the movie starts. Typically, we would see a young prince come into his kingship, discovering and developing his powers; but in Spirit's case, he is using his already-established, confident strength to attempt to return to where he started.
So, as it stands, what is the movie about? Well, it's a little confused. Clearly, the filmmakers want to make a big deal of the relationship between Spirit and Little Creek. In this, I think they ultimately fail. Little Creek stands as a foil to the Colonel; where the Colonel represents domination, and forced submission, Little Creek represents cooperation and partnership. However, Little Creek's themes don't really have a place in the story of the movie. Spirit's herd at the end has no relationship with benevolent humans; Little Creek just lets Spirit and Rain go free; really, apart from having an adventure and getting a wife, Spirit is not internally changed much by the events of the film. If you removed Little Creek from the film entirely (with Spirit just escaping on his own), the plot and ending would still make sense.
I believe the much more potent relationship is between Spirit and the Colonel. It's interesting that upon meeting the Colonel, Spirit's voiceover narration likens him to a snake. This is simply a terrible simile -- the Colonel is direct and straightforward in all his dealings, displays cunning and bravery, and is an accomplished warrior and horseman; there's nothing sneaky or duplicitous about him at all. What this says to me is that Spirit is completely unused to anyone being a rival, perhaps even an equal -- and he reacts, frankly, childishly, completely misreading the person he is up against. Likewise, the Colonel is clearly used to succeeding against all adversaries; his rage at being bested by Spirit is the one time we see him lose control of himself.
Furthermore, the most incredible moral action of the movie is explicitly the Colonel's. When Spirit makes the heroic leap across the gorge with Little Creek, the Colonel prevents one of his men from shooting his fleeing foes; he acknowledges their bravery, and in a remarkable act of mercy, lets them escape with their lives. It is the Colonel who is most changed by the events of the film; not Spirit, not Little Creek, and certainly not Rain (Spirit learns humility in the movie, sort of, but again, it has not bearing on where he ends up ultimately, back own with his herd).
So -- this movie should have had a lot more Colonel, and a lot less Little Creek. The film should have been about two utterly competent leaders coming into sustained conflict with one another, and coming to respect each other throughout the story. An added thematic flavor could have been the way the wars and railroad operations were a sort of de-humanizing operation which stood to blunt the heroic personalities of both the principle combatants. Imagine how much cooler the movie would have been if Spirit and the Colonel ended up having to save each other's lives, instead of the simpish, goody-two-moccasins Little Creek?
The film is an exile-and-return story. Spirit descends into the underworld of captivity, and finally returns to his home, stronger than he was before. What does a little jaunt with friendly American Indians do for this tale? Saying "some humans aren't so bad" is meaningless if, ultimately, you end up leaving all the humans behind anyway. The movie should have concentrated on the more interesting power struggle between two characters from very different worlds, and how their differing ideals of heroism interact. I'd watch that flick.