History 398
Fall Semester 2011
Film Critique In the movie The Missing a woman named Maggie and her two daughters Lilly and Dot live on a plot of land, that they farm in New Mexico in 1885. Maggie is a doctor and lives with her boyfriend who helps run the farm. A stranger visits to seek treatment for a wound and it is Maggie’s estranged father. Her father left her family when she was young to be with the Indians. Maggie does not like her father and eventually makes him leave. Her eldest daughter Lilly, Dot and Maggie’s boyfriend head out on a trip the next day with the cattle. The following morning Maggie is alarmed when they do not return and sets out to find them. She discovers that her boyfriend has been killed and her daughter Dot appears wandering out of the woods. Dot tells Maggie that Indians attacked them and took the older daughter Lilly. Lilly has been kidnapped by Indians and a male witch Indian. Maggie seeks help from the local sheriff who says they don’t have the resources and Maggie has to seek her father’s help. They head off in search of Lilly trying to track down the Indians before it’s too late. In the movie Maggie plays a very head strong, independent woman, who is the head of her household. Her character was not completely accurate because I don’t believe that a woman with no husband and runs her own “healer” doctor clinic is a very realistic idea in the West. She is treated with a lot of respect by all of the men and is even treated equally. They do depict her mothering as strong and firm. The children have to help with everything they do and it showed a very accurate picture of the landscape, frontier home, and clothing. Maggie’s eldest daughter Lily is wanting to escape frontier life and move to the city, and is scorned by Maggie for speaking pitifully in front of a man. The Missing goes into the kidnapping and selling of young women in the West. It showed how the girls were moved around and kidnapped from different territories. This related to the stories that we read in Writing the Range. “Cultural exchanges along the colonial borders of Spanish Mexico included exchanges of human beings who were captured, ransomed, and sold by numerous Indian peoples and Spanish Mexican Colonist” (Brooks, 97). The girls that were kidnapped weren’t just European American but were Mexican and Indian as well. This was a very good description of who would have been taken. The kidnappers in the movie are white and Indian. They are shown as vile and evil people out to sell the girls for pure profit. “Torn from their natal societies in “slave” raids, treated like coins in a volatile system of intercultural exchange, and finally the “property” of stranger” (Brooks, 101). Historically not all the women and children captured were treated so badly that they wanted to leave. “The fact that most women who were captured remained with their captors alerts us to the importance of sexual ties in women’s choices” (Brooks, 97). Even the captured women’s children would be accepted into the tribe that kidnapped them. “Captive women’s children were generally accepted as full members of their father’s cultures” (Brooks, 97). The Missing shows the kidnapping as violent and life threatening and it was a realistic depiction. “Sheer luck and the individual captive’s personal resources determined the actual lived experience, ranging from terror and exploitation to a few remarkable cases of deft negotiation and good fortune” (Brooks, 102). In the movie Maggie comes across American soldiers who are also tracking the Indians. The Lieutenant she talks with treated her almost as a man. I found it interesting that he shared so much information with her. She confronts him about not heading the correct direction to find the girls and he politely argues with her that they aren’t heading that way. I do not think that a Lieutenant would have been as respectful to a woman. The Indians in the movie are shown in every position they would be in the West. It showed Indian prisoners, Indian Army personnel, and as kidnappers. The Indians that kidnapped the daughter and others were part of the Army. They were deserters after escaping a reservation after their Chief was killed. I was surprised with how much the movie discussed relationships between European Americans, Indian and Mexicans. I think that not enough movies about the West cover these intersecting relationships. Women were depicted almost accurately. The main character Maggie’s strong willed personality is much like I would imagine of a hard working pioneer woman. Yet, the men she meets throughout the movie speak to her as if she is a man. She is also a doctor in the movie which I don’t believe that she could have been in the frontier. The eldest daughter is very accurate except in her back-talking to her mother which I don’t think would have been tolerated. The youngest girl Dot too is depicted well, she is hardworking and listens to her mother. The movie overall does a very good job at displaying the West. It doesn’t just show the West as negative or as quaint and perfect. It gives a well-rounded realistic view of a West where you are weary of any strangers, working hard to live day by day, and have relationships with not only Indians but also Spanish Mexicans. Women are depicted in this movie as being strong and self reliant. This is something that I really enjoyed. Women endured a lot hardship in the West on the frontier and with uncertainty. This is why it is nice to watch The Missing and the character Maggie with her strong will and determination.
Brooks, James. This Evil Extends Especially to the Feminine Sex: Captivity and Identity in New Mexico , 1700-1846. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Publishing, 1997. Print.