Smoke Signals is a wonderful movie the pulls together the good times, bad times, heart breaks, love, and unpleasant features in a masterpiece that leads into an adventure.  It begs the question on our understanding of what an Indian is and with the movies creator being an indian I think we get a deep look into what we perceive indians as, what indians perceive themselves as, and what Indians think we perceive them as which proves to quite accurateVictor is a distraught little boy at first whom always tries to look at the bad people, but understandably so. His father left when he was 12 and ever since he heard about what his father, Arnold, did to Thomas in the fire he has been in a tireless search to find the love in Arnold that Victor does not believe in. He ultimately pulls together his father piece by piece and eventually comes to terms with him and forgives him.  Forgiveness was a huge theme in this movie and becomes apparent in the end when Victor relieves the ashes of his father and lets go everything that Arnold did to Victor that he did not find pleasing, he apologizes as well. We are only on this earth for a short time so don't hate, be kind and forgive and that will never lead you astray.