Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

As we were walking this morning, my husband and I argued about the film "Hostiles", starring Wes Studi, Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike. Set in New Mexico after the Civil War, when the military was tasked with subduing the Native tribes, it illustrates what "hostiles" means at different points to different people. The Captain, Bale, is enraged with Natives for the slaughter of his fellow soldiers, but he has also learned their languages. He is charged by Presidential order to accompany Yellow Hawk (Studi) and his family to Montana where his ancestral lands are and he wishes to be buried (he has cancer). On the way they rescue a pioneer woman who has gone crazy after her husband and three children are slaughtered by Natives, though not Yellow Hawk's people. She hates all Natives, but along the journey she comes to like and respect Yellow Hawk and his people. There is a prisoner who hates and kills all Natives, and disturbs them all. After various adventures they reach the sacred land and bury Yellow Hawk, but soon after a man and his two sons ride up and threaten the group, and won't read the order of the Federal Government far away. They open fire and they are killed but so is all Yellow Hawk's family except for his young grandson, whome the widow protects. My husband hates the ending. But I argue with the shifting meaning of hostile, it opens the film up to not race against race but people filled with hate against those wishing to judge others on their behavior, not their race or situation. Both Bale and Pike grow and change, and in the last scene along with the boy, get on a train for back east to attempt a new life. So I like the symbolism but he hates that the Native women and son were killed. But that is accurate. Some whites were indiscriminate about killing women and children, as were some tribes. It's vicious, but the truth.