Film Review

Navajo Boxing Documentary to Premier at DIFF

By Jenny Shank, 11-01-05

When I Hear Thunder, a new Denver Center Media documentary directed by Dirk Olson, will premier at the Denver International Film Festival this month. The film follows the boxing dreams of four Arizona Navajo families. Boxing has flourished among Native Americans since the 1930’s, when the compulsory boarding schools the tribes’ children were sent to began to organize boxing competitions. When I Hear Thunder finds the tradition of boxing intact on reservations across Arizona, where young men train in gyms often run by their fathers, who hung up their gloves after competing in boxing tournaments as youths. Some of the training facilities are rudimentary at best, but hours spent running in the gorgeous red rock canyons of the reservation help carve several of the young men into boxers who can compete—and occasionally triumph—at the national level.

Each of the boxers in When I Hear Thunder has turned to the sport as a way to avoid the pitfalls of reservation life. As one boxer’s mother says, “The reservation is no place for children.� Her child, Cody Pablo, is a young athlete who found a father figure in his boxing coach Vernon Anton in the Gila River Community in Sacaton, Arizona. Cody’s father abandoned the family when he was a baby, and when the film opens, Cody is trying to resist the pull of joining one of the street gangs that plague the reservation. Other boxers turned to the sport to escape slightly less menacing problems—one teenager explains that he and his brothers were chubby kids, so his father enrolled them in boxing to combat potential obesity. Although boxing is practiced in tribes across the country, the Navajos clearly excel at it, with many of the athletes featured in the movie winning the national Native American championships for their age and weight classes.

Douglas Yazzie of Chinle, Arizona serves as the boxing coach for his three sons, and as the movie opens his boys have their sights set on the Olympics. Things look promising when 16-year-old Duke Yazzie wins the Arizona state tournament in the 189-pound category, but as is the case with all the boxers featured in the film, the Yazzies find themselves overmatched when facing national and international competition.

18-year-old Dudley Yazzie is invited to take part in a delegation of Native American boxers to compete at a European tournament in Finland, and he travels to the Seneca Nation in New York to train with other Native athletes. Dudley is built like a fireplug—solid, a little fat around the middle, strong and bull-headed enough to win Arizona competitions, but not fit enough to take on more formidable opponents. Dudley gets a bad draw in Finland, and must face a fighter from France who is ranked second in international competition in his weight class. The French boxer has the chiseled, muscular body of an elite professional athlete, and it’s clear before the first bell rings that Dudley is going to be pounded. Still, though he looks like he shouldn't even be in the ring with his opponent, Dudley is persistent, lasting all four rounds, avoiding a knock-out even though he takes a number of strong blows.

To make a transcendent film, even skilled documentarians need to get lucky with their subject matter. A great story (as in Capturing The Friedmans), star character (as in American Movie or Grizzly Man), or a triumph (as in Spellbound) characterizes the best documentaries. Because When I Hear Thunder focuses on eight different boxers and their extended families, and none of them ends up winning a big match, the movie feels diffuse and never reaches a satisfying climax. However, it's clear that the point of the documentary isn't to show the boxers winning championships, but to convey how they strengthen their cultural heritage through participation in the sport. Cody Pablo listens to tribal music on headphones before his matches, and says that he imagines warriors' heartbeats intermingled with the sound of the drums. When I Hear Thunder offers an illuminating glimpse at a fascinating Western subculture that has, up until now, been little explored or celebrated.

When I Hear Thunder screens at the Starz FilmCenter in Denver at 1:15 p.m. on Sunday, November 13 and at 6:15 p.m. on Monday, November 14.

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